FENYANG, DIOCESE of. – In northern China, in the civil province of Shansi. It was erected as an apostolic vicariate on 12 May 1926, with territory detached from the mission of Taiyuan, and was entrusted to the Chinese secular clergy; on 11 April 1946, with the establishment of the episcopal hierarchy in China, it was elevated to a suffragan diocese of Taiyuan.
It has an area of 84,000 sq. km. On 30 June 1947, out of a total population of 2,100,000 inhabitants, it had 15,000 Catholics. The missionary personnel, besides the bishop, consisted of 29 Chinese priests and 7 foreign priests. The minor seminary, locally situated, had 28 students; for higher studies the diocese made use of the regional seminary of Suanhwa, entrusted to the Chinese secular clergy, where it had 7 theology students and 4 philosophy students.
According to the statistics of previous years, the auxiliary missionary personnel included 4 religious of the Congregation of the Little Brothers of s. John the Baptist, about twenty catechists, and about fifty teachers. Ecclesiastically, the territory was divided into 5 districts and comprised 18 principal stations and 243 secondary ones; it had 35 churches and 45 oratories or chapels. The 4 elementary schools and the 46 schools of Christian doctrine and basic instruction had more than 1,000 pupils. There were also 5 catechumenates, 2 orphanages, and 1 home for the elderly. The wars dispersed the personnel and destroyed the institutions.
The mission, consisting largely of neophytes, developed after the persecution of the Boxers (1900), whose victims, precisely in the territory now belonging to the diocese of F., included the two bishops Gregorio Grassi and Francesco Fogolla (raised to the honor of the blessed on 24 November 1946), and the Chinese priests Pietro Chao, Paolo Kung, Pietro Lei, and Andrea Wang, together with numerous Christians.