LAIMBECKHOVEN, GOTTFRIED von. - Jesuit, missionary, b. in Vienna on 9 Jan. 1707, d. at Tung-Kia-hang (near Sou-tcheu) on 22 May 1787. Having departed for China in 1738, he labored there indefatigably for nearly 50 years, first as a missionary in the province of Hu-Kuang (1739-46), then as visitor of all the missions (1747-51), thereafter as bishop of Nanjing (elected in 1752, consecrated in 1756) and immediately afterward (1757) also as apostolic administrator of Beijing.
He encountered exceedingly difficult times: continuous persecutions (he traveled in disguise as a poor beggar to visit his vast diocese and escape detection), divisions among the clergy of Beijing, and disputes among the former French Jesuits. Though he had the sorrow of announcing to his brethren the suppression of the Order, he was also granted the joy, shortly before his death (he was the last of the German Jesuits in China), of being readmitted to the Society of Jesus, which survived in Russia.
He left many letters and reports, partly published in the *Neuer Weltbott*, nos. 554-555; 590-592; 672-73; 676-78; 689; 691; 698, and partly still unpublished in the Jesuit archives in Shanghai.