HINGANFU [ANKANG], APOSTOLIC PREFECTURE OF. - Situated in the southern part of the civil province of Shensi, in northern China, it was erected as an apostolic prefecture on 28 March 1928 with territory detached partly from the mission of Hanchung (v.) and partly from that of Sian (v.), and was entrusted to the Italian Conventual Friars Minor, who had been present in the place since 1924. As an apostolic prefecture it depends directly on the Holy See.
It has an area of 43,000 sq km. As of 30 June 1949, out of a total population of about 1,500,000 inhabitants, Catholics numbered 3,756 and catechumens 2,119; about 100,000 Muslims and 1,000 Protestants, the rest pagans. The missionary staff consisted of 3 Chinese secular priests and 12 Conventual religious priests, of whom 7 were natives. Among the auxiliary staff there were 1 Italian Conventual lay religious, 21 sisters all Chinese, and some catechists and teachers. The seminarians were 15 in the minor seminary and 2 in the regional seminary of Kaifeng, in Honan. Among the works were 1 hospital with 28 beds; 3 medical dispensaries; 2 orphanages with 21 girls; 1 home for the aged with 12 inmates. The churches were 7, the chapels 12, the primary stations 5 and the secondary ones 24.
The preaching of the Gospel is of very recent date: in the part of the territory taken from Hanchung there were only a few old Christians from the province of Hupeh, when Fr. Domenico Callerio, of the Pontifical Seminary of Sts. Peter and Paul for Foreign Missions, assisted by a Chinese priest, was able to begin the ministry at H. in 1898. Shortly afterwards Fr. Alberico Crescitelli, of the same seminary, also worked in the Christian community of Ngoukikou; he was killed in hatred of the faith on 20 July 1900 in the mission of Hanchung. In the part of the territory taken from Sian the Christian beginnings are even more recent, dating only from 1920. The Conventuals set to work with zeal and obtained satisfactory results. They nevertheless had difficulties and victims, among them the first apostolic prefect Fr. Giovanni Soggiu, killed by bands of brigands on 10 Nov. 1930, and the second apostolic prefect, Fr. Berardo Baracciu, who died, in Sept. 1940, in a Japanese air bombardment of H.