HANCHUNG [HANZHONG], Diocese of. - It is located in northern China, in the southwestern part of the civil province of Shensi. It was erected as an apostolic vicariate on June 2, 1887, by division of the apostolic vicariate of Shensi, and was named the apostolic vicariate of Southern Shensi. It was entrusted to the Seminary of Sts. Peter and Paul of Rome for Foreign Missions. On Dec. 3, 1924, it took the name of apostolic vicariate of Hanchungfu, and, when in 1926 the Seminary of Sts. Peter and Paul merged with the Institute for Foreign Missions of Milan, the mission of H. passed to the new Pontifical Institute of Sts. Peter and Paul and of Sts. Ambrose and Charles for Foreign Missions. In 1928 it ceded part of its territory for the erection of the apostolic prefecture of Hinganfu. On Apr. 11, 1946, with the establishment of the episcopal hierarchy in China, H. was elevated to a diocese, suffragan of Sian.
It has an area of 16,000 sq km. As of June 30, 1949, out of a total population of 1,500,000 inhabitants, Catholics numbered 18,679, catechumens 414, Protestants 2,000, Muslims 50,000, and the rest pagans, Buddhists, Taoists or Confucianists. Besides the Italian bishop, there were also 25 Italian priests and 8 Chinese secular priests. In the preparatory seminary 12 students were studying, 36 in the minor seminary and 2 in the regional seminary of Homan, based in Kaifeng. Among the auxiliary personnel there were 2 Italian lay brothers, 51 sisters of whom 15 were Italian and the rest Chinese, 23 catechists, 91 teachers, 20 baptizers and 2 doctors. Over the vast territory, divided into 14 districts, were scattered 14 primary and 107 secondary stations, 22 churches and 72 oratories or chapels. The works included 1 hospital with 30 beds, 6 medical clinics, 3 orphanages with 148 girls, 2 homes for the elderly with 44 residents, 1 leprosarium with 18 patients, 2 foundling homes with 41 children, 1 boys' college with 16 students and 1 girls' college with 22 students, 1 kindergarten with 63 children in care. The 20 elementary schools had a total of 1,883 pupils and the 22 middle schools 446 students.
The Christian origins of H. are linked to those of the whole of Shensi, whose capital is Sian (v.). Among the Jesuit Fathers who worked here in the 17th century, mention must be made of Faber and Motel, the first of whom died a few kilometers from H. in repute of sanctity (1659); among the Franciscan Fathers, who succeeded the Jesuits, the Bl. John of Triora (d. in 1816) and Martinelli, who was arrested here in 1860 and taken prisoner to Canton. After the erection of the autonomous mission, its true founder and organizer was Msgr. Pio Giuseppe Passerini, a member of the Seminary of Sts. Peter and Paul of Rome, who governed the vicariate from 1895 to 1918. In the last thirty years the mission has several times suffered in personnel and works because of incursions and plundering by communist soldiers, who had their headquarters in the mission of Yenan, in northern Shensi.