Sanyuan – The Diocese of Sanyuan, in the northwestern Chinese province of Shaanxi, is celebrating the 400th anniversary of the new beginning of the proclamation of the Gospel in Shaanxi Province, as part of the Jubilee of Hope. The celebrations also revolve around the tenth edition of the Christian Art Exhibition, inaugurated on September 26 by Bishop Joseph Han Jinying in the premises adjacent to the Cathedral. On this occasion, Bishop Han also inaugurated a statue of Philip Wang Zheng, the first Catholic in the province, according to the Chinese ecclesiastical information website xinde.org. This is a sign of how the local Catholic community gratefully preserves the memory of the entire journey undertaken by the Catholic Church in Shaanxi Province from generation to generation.
Philip Wang, a mandarin and renowned scholar in the field of agriculture during the Ming Dynasty, is considered the “initiator” of the Catholic Church’s presence in Shaanxi over the past four centuries. Thanks to his work at the imperial court, the agricultural scientist frequently traveled to the capital, where he met various Western missionaries, including Father Diego de Pantoja. Attracted by the Catholic faith, Wang Zheng was baptized between 1615 and 1616, taking the name Philip, thus becoming the first Catholic in Shaanxi in modern times. In 1625, while observing a period of mourning, Wang approached the missionaries based in Beijing, requesting that one of them be sent to Shaanxi. In April, the Jesuit Nicolas Trigault arrived and went to Jingyang, Wang Zheng’s birthplace, where he baptized his family members and established a chapel in their residence.
From that moment, exactly 400 years ago, Catholicism began to spread from Jingyang throughout Shaanxi.
In the presence of the civil authorities, Bishop Joseph Han led the assembly in prayer on the opening day of the celebrations, praying for peace in the world, prosperity in the country, harmony and social stability, and the well-being of the people. The Diocese of Sanyuan is deep-rooted in an ancient tradition of using art and culture to proclaim the Gospel. Especially through calligraphy and traditional Chinese painting, artists of the diocese combine ancient wisdom with contemporary needs, utilizing ancient local artistic traditions to express their Christian faith.
The apostolic work in Shaanxi Province in modern times has seen the contribution of renowned Jesuits and later continued by the Franciscans. According to local tradition, the Jesuit astronomer, scholar, geographer, and mathematician Giulio Aleni also arrived in Shaanxi around 1620. During his stay, he taught the local population how to cultivate grapes, thus enabling the production of wine, which was essential for the celebration of Holy Mass. In 1628, thanks to a donation from Wang Zheng, the province’s first Catholic church was built and inaugurated with a service during which 50 baptisms were administered. In the following decades, more than 40 percent of the country’s 150,000 baptized Catholics were concentrated in Shaanxi.
In 1696, the Holy See established the Apostolic Vicariate of Shaanxi and appointed the Franciscan Basilio Brollo as its first Apostolic Vicar.
In 1723, Emperor Yongzheng of the Qing Dynasty issued decrees prohibiting Christian preaching, confiscating churches, and expelling many missionaries. The remaining Franciscans and Catholic missionaries were forced into hiding. In 1890, the first Franciscan Sisters of Mary began their new mission in Shaanxi, followed by missionaries from the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions .
In the first decades of the 20th century, works of charity were also a valuable and effective means of witnessing to Christ’s love for all people and maintaining the missionary fervor of the Catholic Church in Shaanxi. The urgent need to train local priests to meet the growing pastoral needs of the people of God led to the establishment of seminaries and educational institutions in all eight dioceses of the province. During these decades, several seminarians from Shaanxi were sent to Rome to study at the Pontifical Urbaniana University. During this period, the ecclesial network of communities and institutions was consolidated, which still today reflects the vitality of the Catholic Church in this Chinese province.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.