Pierre-Etienne-Lazare Favre was born on February 12, 1812 in Janville (Eure-et-Loire), France.^[1] 

On December 22, 1838, he was ordained a priest at Orléans. He was a vicar at the ministry of Montargis for about a year before moving on to Noyers from 1839 to 1842, and a priest in Thimory from 1842 to 1843 before finally joining the MEP in 1842.^[2] Favre departed for the College General of Penang, Malaysia on December 21 of the same year. He taught there for roughly three years before finally being assigned as one of the priests to start a mission in Malacca under the new Apostolic Vicariate of the Malay Peninsula in 1845, just a few years after it detached from being part of the Apostolic Vicariate of Western Siam in 1842.^[3]

Upon arriving in Malacca, they were met with some resistance from the Portuguese missions that had been allowed to retain their chapels and practices. It is said that early on, Father Favre was able to bring in 15 Catholics loyal to the previous Vicariate of Western Siam to join the St Francis Xavier parish they were attempting to establish under the new Vicariate.^[4] Furthermore, there are mentions of Favre stopping a schism of about 200 people from happening within the Church, although who these people were and the exact circumstances and events behind the issues are not mentioned.^[5]

In 1846 he undertook an expedition to the Mantras towards the Benot and Mouar rivers in order to learn about the indigenous tribes there and to see if a mission could be set up among them.^[6] His experiences and findings of the culture of the people living there was detailed at length in his book published many years later in 1865 in Paris during his more scholarly endeavours entitled “An account of the Wild Tribes inhabiting the Malayan Peninsula”. In the book, he said: “My design was to visit the several wild tribes which were said to inhabit in great numbers the most interior part of the Peninsula, and to obtain, respecting them, the most full and exact information which circumstances would allow me. I was also ordered by his lordship D’ Boucho, to ascertain if there would be a possibility of establishing a mission amongst them”.^[7] However, by the end of it, it was clear that the goal of establishing a mission amongst these communities was unsuccessful, although the journey seemed to have been a great experience for him in gathering knowledge on these cultures.

Father Favre’s impact and legacy of Catholicism in Malaya really began when he returned from his expedition and he began raising funds and building churches in Malacca and later on, in Penang. In 1849 after Bishop Boucho obtained the land that was the site of the ruins of the Dominican Convent of Our Lady of the Rosary and part of the A Famosa Fortress, Father Favre began to plan for the construction of The Church of St Francis Xavier in Malacca dedicated to the eponymous Saint, with the help of Father Pierre Barbe and later Father Francois Allard.^[8] There were struggles though to complete the church due to a lack of funds.

While the construction of the Church continued with the available resources, Father Favre was tasked to undertake a fund-raising campaign starting in Mauritius and the Bourban Islands which took him all the way to South America in 1850 and included visits to Brazil, Chile, Peru, and Argentina. He returned to Malacca some three years later with sufficient funds to finally continue and complete the building of the Church.^[9] Upon his return, however, he fell ill and in 1854, he returned to France to recuperate, leaving Father Allard to finish the venture which the latter did by 1856, having put in the finishing touches.^[10] Today St Francis Xavier Church is still standing and is well-known for its beautiful neo-gothic architecture thought of by Favre himself.

When he finally recovered, Father Favre returned to Malaya in 1856 and was this time stationed in Penang. Records show that he continued working on building and renovating various churches and convents, in particular the Convent of the Ladies of Saint-Maur under the Infant Jesus Sisters, which in part is still active today as an educational institution.^[11] He also worked on the Church of the Assumption, at some point acting as parish priest of the third oldest Catholic church in Malaysia which was in some ways considered “the mother church of the French Mission” at the time.^[12]This, however, would be some of his last work in Malaya as he again found his health ailing. He returned to France in December of 1857, this time indefinitely. A year later in 1858, he parted ways with the MEP.^[13]

He returned to the diocese of Orléans, acting as parish priest of Aulney from June 1 to December 30 of 1859. His ventures following this term took him down a more academic path as he was given permission to take up a Malay language course at the School of Modern Oriental Language in November of 1860.^[14] While he never returned to Malaya, Father Favre saw the importance of learning and teaching the languages of the country. By February 1862, he had become a lecturer and in April 1864, a full professor within the college.^[15]

This led to the publication of several notable works on the aboriginal tribes, such as mentioned before. He also dedicated himself to working on translations of works into the Malay and Javanese languages. As he noted: “All travellers who have travelled the Indian Archipelago and Oceania have been able to appreciate the importance of the knowledge of the Malay language.”^[16] His fascination and appreciation for the language led him to create several dictionaries and grammar aids to help others to learn the Malay language.

Aside from his contributions to Catholicism in Malaya itself, Father Favre was integral in maintaining and exemplifying the importance of learning the local language in order to fully interact, understand, and appreciate the country, including when on mission. Although no longer part of the MEP, Father Favre created a Catechism (a book on the teaching of Catholicism) in the Malay language, although there is no indication what happened to it.^[17] Father Favre received several awards and recognitions for his extensive works and publication, and he continued to work until he died in Paris on March 17, 1887. He was buried a month later in the cemetery of Pithiviers (Loiret).^[18]