American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM). Near East, Records, 1820-1965.

The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), the first organized missionary society in the United States, was founded in 1810. By the time of its centenary in 1910, the Board was responsible for 102 mission stations and a missionary staff of 600 in India,Ceylon, West Central Africa (Angola), South Africa and Rhodesia, Asiatic and European Turkey, four different regions in China, Japan, Micronesia, the Philippines, and the "Papal lands" of Mexico, Spain and Austria. There were also missions to American Indians, and a mission to Hawaii. The ABCFM began as an inter-denominational society, including Presbyterian and Reformed churches, besides its core of Congregationalists. After some secessions due to the slavery issue and the formation by the Presbyterian Church of its own foreign mission board, the ABCFM was left as a Congregationalist body after 1870. In 1957, the Congregational Christian Churches merged with the Evangelical and Reformed Church to form the United Church of Christ (UCC). On June 29, 1961 the ABCFM was formally concluded, becoming part of the United Church Board for World Ministries (UCBWM), an instrumentality of the new denomination. On July 1, 2000, the UCBWM became Wider Church Ministries, one of the four covenanted ministries of the UCC. (from the finding aid for the ABCFM records at the Houghton Library, Harvard University). The Near East is a geographical term that roughly encompasses Western Asia. The term has fallen into disuse, and has been replaced by the Middle East. Some of the countries included are Armenia, Turkey, Syria, Greece,Albania, and Bulgaria.