In the 1980s, a new Catholic community was born when some of the Tibetan frontiersmen converted to Christianity and considered the martyrdom of Nicolas Krick and Augustin Bourry as the founding act of their Church.

The priest of the presbyteral school La Chapelle-Largeau presented them the relics of Jean-Charles Cornay, a missionary member of the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris, who had died a martyr.

Seminary professors described Augustin Bourry as stubborn, passionate, devout, respectful, and considerate of his superiors, but reserved with his fellow students.

His beginnings in Paris coincided with the resumption of the persecution of Christians in Asia: the martyrdom of Augustin Schoeffler in Tonkin and Jean-Baptiste Vachal in China.

On the domestic front, the coup d'état of 2 December 1851, by the President of the Republic, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, the future Napoléon III, was the prelude to major political upheavals.

[11] These new disciplines, as insignificant as they may seem at first glance, changed his behavior: he became firmer and more self-confident, and his activities revealed talents and intellectual abilities previously unknown.

[13] The next day, the superior asked him to prepare for Korea, one of the most dangerous missions, however, Augustin, who was very happy with this destination, was forced to postpone his departure.

[15] On 12 August 1852 a large number of his parishioners made the journey on the occasion of his departure for the mission, and Augustin Bourry was moved by this gesture of attention.

He took the train to Bordeaux with the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris confreres sent to India: Clovis Bolard, François Thirion, Jean-Denis David, François-Xavier Digard, and Charles Dallet,[16] then, they embarked on the Vallée-le-Luz.

Augustin took with him books in English, Hindustani, and Tibetan; a rifle and an accordion, all items that Nicolas Krick, who already was in Northern India, had requested and from where he planned to reach Tibet.

[18] The voyage was long and Augustin Bourry often suffered from seasickness,[19] but it was also an opportunity for him to share the life of people who were strangers to the Church, especially the sailors, whose religious practice was almost non-existent.

[20] On 26 December 1852, after one hundred and twenty-four days at sea,[21] the Vallée-du-Luz finally docked in Pondicherry, the first stop in India and it was Mr. Bonnard who welcomed the travelers.

On 4 May 1853 he and Bernard thought they would find Nicolas Krick, who had become superior of the Tibet mission, in Nowgong, a town in the Madhya Pradesh district of Chhatarpur.

So, Augustin set off alone on 20 June 1853,[25] and after arriving at his destination on 22 July 1853 he learned that Krick, whose state of health was increasingly worrisome, had gone to Nowgong for treatment.

[28] A few days later, Krick and Bourry prepared the new expedition that would open the gates to Tibet and Bernard left the two missionaries for the South.

[36] The exact motives of Chief Kaïsha elude the investigators: theft, revenge, hostility to the Catholic religion, all these three options are probable.

[37] When the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris learned of the death of the two missionaries in January 1855, the directors begged the Bishop of Calcutta to do everything in his power to ensure that the British government did not retaliate or intervene politically.

This thesis is partially challenged by Laurent Deshayes in his book Tibet (1846-1952) because the Kaïsha tribal chief never mentioned Tibetans during interrogations.

[36] The directors of the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris wrote to the Archbishop of Calcutta, comparing Bourry's death to that of the Vietnamese Martyrs: "Respect for their memory, which should remind the savage tribes among whom they passed only of the martyrs of charity and apostolic zeal, as well as the entirely spiritual character of their undertaking, from which they endeavored on every occasion to remove even the slightest hint of political views, seem to us sufficient reasons not to desire the intervention of the British government[40]".

A few years later, in 1862, Auguste Desgodins tried to persuade the British government to initiate proceedings for the beatification of Krick and Bourry as martyrs.

The Indian government's policy of protecting the tribes of Arunachal Pradesh led to missionaries being denied access to the region.

It wasn't until 1978 that an Indian Salesian priest and school principal, Father Thomas Menamparampil, managed to renew contact with the Mishmis at the invitation of one of the tribal chiefs.

In 1991 Menamparampil renewed contact with the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris, who discovered the influence of Krick and Bourry in the region.