ANZER, JOHANN BAPTIST. - German bishop, missionary in China, b. 16 May 1851, d. at Rome, 24 Nov. 1903. A member of the Societas Verbi Divini of Steyl (Holland), he was sent to China in 1879, to southern Shantung. In 1886 he was appointed titular bishop of Telepte and apostolic vicar in recognition of the broad success of his mission (at his death he left 26,000 baptized persons and 40,000 catechumens).
A. has direct connections with the emergence of German policy in the Far East. With the consent of the Holy See, in fact, in 1890 he withdrew his mission from the traditional French protectorate and appealed to the German one, thus succeeding, among other things, in penetrating Jencianfu itself, the holy city of the Chinese, the homeland of Confucius. When two of his missionaries were murdered there in 1897, A., in order to guarantee the lives and activity of the missionaries, induced the German government to send two warships into Kiao-Ciao Bay. He also played an active part in the leasing of Tsing-tao to Germany. By thus placing missionary activity so openly under the protection of a European power, A. provided political justification for the anti-Christian persecution of 1900 (Boxer War, v.).