IDUHSIEN, APOSTOLIC PREFECTURE of. - In the central part of the civil province of Shantung, in northern China; it was erected on 16 June 1931, by division Chefoo (v.), and remained entrusted to the Order of Friars Minor, which sends there religious from the regular province of S. Dionigi in France. As an apostolic prefecture it depends directly on the Holy See.
It has an area of approximately 18,000 sq. km. As of 30 June 1947, out of a total population of approximately 2,500,000 inhabitants, there were 12,620 Catholics. Besides the apostolic prefect, on the same date there were 15 foreign Franciscans and 9 Chinese secular priests; 20 sisters, of whom 17 were Chinese; 3 theology students were studying, for the priesthood, at the regional Seminary of Tsinan. Its works included 1 orphanage with 17 girls, while other works and the schools, owing to recent events, had been suspended.
Christianity in these lands predates 1641, the year in which the name is recorded of the Jesuit missionary Nicola Longobardi, who came from Pechino to visit the faithful and who in that year administered Baptism to a descendant of the Ming dynasty, named Paolo. From 1650, with the Spanish Franciscan Antonio Cabarello, the sons of s. Francesco assumed the care of this territory (together with the rest of the civil province of Shantung) and retain it still.