HANCHUNG, DIOCESE OF. — It is situated in northern China, in the southwestern part of the civil province of Shensi. It was erected as an apostolic vicariate on 2 June 1887 through the division of the apostolic vicariate of Shensi and was given the name apostolic vicariate of Southern Shensi. It was entrusted to the Seminary of the SS. Apostles Peter and Paul of Rome for the Foreign Missions. On 3 December 1924 it was given the name apostolic vicariate of Hanchungfu, and, when the Seminary of the SS. Apostles Peter and Paul merged with the Institute of the Foreign Missions of Milan in 1926, the mission of H. passed to the new Pontifical Institute of the SS. Apostles Peter and Paul and of SS. Ambrose and Charles for the Foreign Missions. In 1928 it ceded part of its territory for the erection of the apostolic prefecture of Hinganfu. On 11 April 1946, with the institution of the episcopal hierarchy in China, H. was elevated to a suffragan diocese of Sian.
It has an area of 16,000 sq km. On 30 June 1949, out of a total population of 1,500,000 inhabitants, there were 18,679 Catholics, 414 catechumens, 2,000 Protestants, 50,000 Muslims, and the remainder pagans, Buddhists, Taoists, or Confucianists. In addition to the Italian bishop, there were also 25 Italian priests and 8 Chinese secular priests. Twelve pupils were studying in the preparatory seminary, 36 in the minor seminary, and 2 in the regional seminary of Homan, located in Kaifeng. The auxiliary personnel included 2 Italian lay brothers, 51 nuns, 15 of them Italian and the remainder Chinese, 23 catechists, 91 teachers, 20 baptizers, and 2 physicians. Across the vast territory, divided into 14 districts, there were 14 primary and 107 secondary stations, 22 churches, and 72 oratories or chapels. The institutions included 1 hospital with 30 beds, 6 medical dispensaries, 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’ boarding school with 16 pupils and 1 girls’ boarding school with 22 pupils, and 1 nursery school with 63 children. The 20 elementary schools had a total of 1,883 pupils, and the 22 secondary schools had 446 pupils.
The Christian origins of H. are linked to those of all Shensi, ASIA (v.). Among the Jesuit Fathers who worked there in the seventeenth century, Faber and Motel should be remembered; the former died a few kilometers from H. in a reputation for holiness (1659). Among the Franciscan Fathers who succeeded the Jesuits were b. Giovanni da Triora (d. 1816) and Martinelli, who was arrested there in 1860 and taken as a 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 the SS. Peter and Paul of Rome, who governed the vicariate from 1895 to 1918. During the last thirty years, the mission suffered repeatedly in its personnel and institutions because of incursions and looting by Communist soldiers, whose headquarters were in the mission of Yenan, north of Shensi.