During the Bettiah Raj of Bihar, the ethnoreligious community of Bettiah Christians was established in India in the 17th century by Christian missionaries belonging to the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, a Roman Catholic religious order. The Capuchins were personally invited to establish the Bettiah Christian Mission by Maharaja Dhurup Singh of the Bettiah Raj after Italian Capuchin priest Joseph Mary Bernini treated his ill wife; Pope Benedict XIV, on 1 May 1742, approved the appointment of the Capuchins at the Bettiah Fort in a letter to Maharaja Dhurup Singh.