ANZER, JOHANN BAPTIST. — German bishop and missionary in China, b. 16 May 1851, d. in Rome 24 Nov. 1903. A member of the Society of the Divine Word at Steyl (Holland), he was sent to China in 1879, to southern Shantung. In 1886 he was named titular Bishop of Telepte and Vicar Apostolic in recognition of the great success of his mission (at his death he left 26,000 baptised and 40,000 catechumens).
A. was closely connected with the rise of German policy in the Far East. With the consent of the Holy See, in 1890 he removed his mission from the traditional French protectorate and appealed instead to the German one, thereby managing to penetrate even into Jenciantufu, the sacred city of the Chinese, birthplace of Confucius. When two of his missionaries were assassinated there in 1897, A., to safeguard the lives and work of the missionaries, secured from the German government the dispatch of two warships to the bay of Kiao-Ciao. He also played an active part in the lease of Tsing-tao to Germany. By thus openly placing missionary activity under the protection of a European power, A. provided political justification for the anti-Christian persecution of 1900 (the Boxer War, v.).