Kiangchow [Xinjiang County], Apostolic Prefecture of

KIANGCHOW [XINJIANG COUNTY], APOSTOLIC PREFECTURE OF. - In the southern part of the civil province of Shansi, in northern China. It was erected on 25 May 1936, by division of the apostolic vicariate of Luanfu (v. LUAN) and entrusted, like the mother mission, to the Order of Friars Minor, which sends there the fathers of the regular Dutch province for missionary work. As an apostolic prefecture it depends directly on the Holy See.

It has an area of about 20,000 sq. km. As of 30 June 1947, out of a total population of about 2,000,000 inhabitants, Catholics numbered 7,500; the Franciscan Fathers 14, of whom 7 were Chinese; the sisters 7 foreign and 7 Chinese. In the regional seminary of Taiyuan the mission has 2 students of philosophy.

The Christian origins of the mission go back to the first decades of the 17th century through the work of the Jesuits, whose fathers Giacomo Rho and Alfonso Vagnoni preached in the city and territory of K. Then the Franciscans extended the evangelization to other civil districts, including that of Luan. The various persecutions caused numerous victims among the faithful. The disturbances of recent years have suspended the works of the mission and caused some victims among the missionaries; the apostolic prefect himself, seized by bandits, was for some time believed dead.

Adamo Pucci