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 (1738), he worked there tirelessly for almost 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 Nanchino (elected in 1752, consecrated in 1756), and soon afterward (1757) also as apostolic administrator of Pechino.
He lived through very difficult times: continual persecutions (he travelled disguised as a poor beggar, in order to visit the extensive diocese and evade the searches), schisms among the clergy of Pechino, and disputes among the former French Jesuits. Though he had the sorrow of announcing the suppression of the Order to his confrères, he was 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reports, published partly in the Neuer Weltbott, nos. 554-55; 590-92; 672-73; 676-78; 689; 691; 698, and partly still unpublished in the Archive of the Jesuits at Sciangai.