KIANGCHOW, 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. LAON) and entrusted, like the mother mission, to the Order of Friars Minor, which sends there the fathers of the regular province of Holland for missionary work. As an apostolic prefecture it depends directly on the Holy See.
It has an area of approximately 20,000 sq. km. As of 30 June 1947, out of a total population of approximately 2,000,000 inhabitants, there were 7,500 Catholics; 14 Franciscan Fathers, 7 of them Chinese; 7 foreign and 7 Chinese sisters. At the regional Seminary of Taiyuan the mission has 2 philosophy students.
The Christian origins of the mission date 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. The Franciscans then extended 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 mission’s works and claimed some victims among the missionaries; the apostolic prefect himself, captured by bandits, was for some time believed dead.