Robert Reid Kalley

Robert Reid Kalley (September 1809 – 17 January 1888) was a Scottish physician and Presbyterian, later Congregationalist, missionary notable for his efforts to spread Presbyterian views in Portuguese-speaking territories and as the introducer of Protestantism in Portugal at a time when the only religion allowed to the Portuguese citizens was Roman Catholicism.

Impressed with the poverty, illiteracy and ignorance of the Madeirans, Kalley exercised Medicine gratuituously and decided to teach people to read and to write.

[3] The Catholic Church started to look with concern on these initiatives, since proselytising was forbidden by the Portuguese Constitutional Charter of 1826 and the Bishop of Funchal forbade Kalley's religious lectures in 1841.

On 8 May 1845 he founded the first Presbyterian Church of Portugal, in Funchal, ordaining presbyters and deacons, and celebrating the Lord's Supper for 61 Madeiran converts.

Since Protestantism wasn't allowed for Portuguese citizens, he faced charges of blasphemy and heresy and all the schools he had founded were closed in 1846.

Kalley sought refuge at the house of the British Consul and had to leave the island in 1846 in disguise, heading for the United States.

Kalley arrived in Brazil in 1854, under the reign of Pedro II, and Catholicism was the country's official religion.

Later, after he developed and founded Congregational churches with a few doctrinal variations (like SPRINKLED BAPTISM FOR ADULTS ONLY) and adapted to the Brazilian culture, which was called locally as Igreja Evangelical .

[7] Kalley became a close friend of Brazil's emperor Pedro II, with whom he often argued against slavery and prohibition of public worship.