HENGCHOW [HENGYANG], Diocese of. - In the civil province of Hunan, in central China, it was erected as an apostolic vicariate, with territory detached from the mission of Changsha, on 23 July 1930 and entrusted to the Order of Friars Minor, which sends there, for missionary work, Italian religious from various regular provinces; on 11 April 1946, with the establishment of the episcopal hierarchy in China, it was elevated to a diocese, suffragan of Changsha.
It has an area of 17,000 sq km. As of June 1949, out of a total population of about 3,000,000 inhabitants, Catholics numbered 11,912 and catechumens 485; except for about 2,000 Protestants, the rest were pagans. The missionary staff, besides the bishop, counted 11 Chinese secular priests and 15 Franciscan religious priests, of whom 4 were Chinese. The students of the preparatory Seminary were 30, of the minor seminary 14. The nuns were 25 Chinese and 3 Italian; the catechists 33, the teachers 85, the baptizers 51. The territory was divided into 4 rural deaneries with 15 primary and 66 secondary stations, 15 churches and 54 chapels. The works included 1 hospital with 110 beds, 6 medical clinics, 1 orphanage with 85 girls, 1 home for the aged with 30 residents. The elementary schools had 663 pupils, the only middle school 496, and the 11 schools of prayer and first elements 486.
The territory of the mission of H. is the one that has the most memories of Christian preaching in the civil province of Hunan: the Jesuits passed through there in the 17th century; at H. was imprisoned, in 1816, the Bl. Giovanni Lantrua da Triora, later strangled at Changsha; there resided Fr. Michele Navarro, first as pro-vicar of the apostolic vicariate of Hukwang and then as first apostolic vicar (1856-77) of the vicariate of Hunan, which had its seat on the hill of Hwangshawang, near H., sanctified also by the dwelling of the three martyrs of 1900: Fantosati, Cesidio and Gambaro. When, in 1879, the Hermits of St. Augustine took charge of the apostolic vicariate of northern Hunan, today in part the diocese of Changheth (v.), they found a single missionary center at Kiakai-tse, made up of 45 Christians native to H.
Bibliography5 works
Adamo Pucci