Anzer, Johann Baptist

ANZER, JOHANN BAPTIST. - German bishop, missionary in China, b. 16 May 1851, d. in Rome on 24 Nov. 1903. A member of the Societas Verbi Divini of Steyl (Holland), he was sent to China in 1879, to southern Shandong. In 1886 he was appointed titular bishop of Telepte and vicar apostolic in recognition of the great success of his mission (at his death he left 26,000 baptized and 40,000 catechumens).

A. has direct connections with the establishment 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, succeeding among other things in thus penetrating into Jianfu itself, the holy city of the Chinese, the birthplace of Confucius. When in 1897 two of his missionaries were murdered there, A., in order to guarantee the life and activity of the missionaries, provoked from the German government the dispatch of two warships into Kiaochow Bay. He also took an active part in the lease of Tsingtao to Germany. By thus placing missionary activity so openly under the protection of a European power, A. offered political justification for the anti-Christian persecution of 1900 (Boxer War, v.).