KAIFENG, ARCIDIOCESI di. – In the civil province of Honan, in central China. Erected as an autonomous mission, under the name of the Apostolic Vicariate of Eastern Honan, on 21 Sept. 1916, through the division of the Apostolic Vicariate of Southern Honan (v. NANYANG), and entrusted, like the mother mission, to what was then the Institute for Foreign Missions of Milan, it took its name from the city of K. on 3 Dec. 1924; on 15 Dec. 1927 it ceded several civil subprefectures which, together with others from the mission of Nanyang, gave rise to the Apostolic Prefecture of Sinyangchow (v. SINYANG), and on 19 June 1928 it was divided in order to Kweiteh (v.). With the establishment of the episcopal hierarchy in China, on 11 Apr. 1946, K. was elevated to a metropolitan archdiocese of the ecclesiastical province of Honan, with the dioceses of Chengchow, Chumatien, Kweiteh, Loyang, Nanyang, Sinyang and Weihwei as suffragans.
It has an area of 24,000 sq. km. As of 30 June 1947, out of a population of approximately 4,500,000 inhabitants, there were 18,018 Catholics and 970 catechumens. In addition to the archbishop, there were 17 Italian and 11 Chinese priests. The minor seminary had 7 students and 1 philosophy student, while 3 theology students from K. were studying at the regional seminary of Honan, which is located in K. The auxiliary personnel included 2 Italian brothers, 92 nuns, 65 of them Chinese, and 22 catechists. In the 18 ecclesiastical districts, corresponding to the 18 civil prefectures, 162 Christian communities were scattered; they were gathered into 19 primary and 162 secondary stations, with 17 churches, 28 oratories and 34 chapels. There were 9 primary schools with 1,669 children, 2 secondary schools with 1,302 students, and 7 schools for prayer and elementary instruction with 275 pupils. Among the institutions were 1 orphanage with 39 residents, 1 hospital with 40 beds, and 12 medical dispensaries. The Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions, which has 5 missions in China, built in K., the capital of the civil province of Honan, the regional house for the study of the Chinese language and the immediate preparation of its missionaries for apostolic life.
It is not known to whom the first Christian preaching in K. is to be attributed. It appears that in 1605, besides a Jewish colony, there was a nucleus of descendants of ancient Christians, who called themselves “worshippers of the Cross” (Nestorians), but who later disappeared. In the 17th century several Jesuit religious resided in K., among them Fathers Trigault, Sambiasi, Figueredo, Herdtrich and Gozzani, but the persecution of 1724 erased every memory of their ministry, so much so that in 1837 Blessed Perboyre found no more than about ten Christians in K., clockmakers by profession and natives of Beijing; they too later disappeared. Throughout the nineteenth century no missionary was able to establish himself in K.; this was finally achieved in 1902–1904 by the then Father Tacconi, who later became the first apostolic vicar of K. and to whose activity the mission owed its great development.