LANCHOW, ARCHDIOCESE of. — In northwestern China. Erected under the name of the Apostolic Vicariate of Kansu on 21 June 1878, by division of the Apostolic Vicariate of Shensi, and entrusted to the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (Scheut), whose missionaries, given the impossibility of defining the boundaries more precisely, were to respect the jurisdiction of the missions already assigned to other institutes; on 28 Apr. 1905 it took the name of Apostolic Vicariate of Northern Kansu and ceded its eastern part to establish the said Apostolic Prefecture, geographically inaccurate in name, of Southern Kansu, likewise entrusted to the Congregation of Scheut. On 8 March 1922, these two missions of Kansu and the neighboring mission of Ili (or Chinese Turkestan) having been suppressed, their entire territory was divided into two distinct ecclesiastical jurisdictions: 1) the Apostolic Vicariate of Western Kansu, which comprised this part of Kansu proper, the territory of the suppressed mission of Ili, and the territory of Alachan, then belonging to southwestern Mongolia and now to the civil province of Ningsia: all of it was entrusted to the Society of the Divine Word; 2) the Apostolic Vicariate of Eastern Kansu, comprising the territory of the suppressed Apostolic Prefecture of Southern Kansu and entrusted to the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin. On 3 Dec. 1924 the former took the name of Apostolic Vicariate of L., from the city where the Ordinary resided; the latter took the Tsinchow (v.). On 14 Feb. 1930 the new civil province of Sinkiang was detached from L. and erected as a mission sui iuris (v. SINKIANG); on 4 March 1937 the civil province of Chinghai was detached and erected SIMONIA (v.). On 11 Apr. 1946, with the establishment of the episcopal hierarchy in China, L. was elevated to a metropolitan archdiocese of the ecclesiastical province of Kansu, with the diocese of Tsinchow as its suffragan; on 24 June 1950 Pingliang (v.) was added.
It covers an area of 250,000 sq km. As of 30 June 1949, out of a population of 4,000,000 inhabitants, there were 17,117 Catholics and 682 catechumens; 8,000 Protestants and 1,000,000 Muslims, the remainder pagans. In addition to the archbishop, there were 38 Verbite Fathers, 1 of them Chinese, and 11 secular priests, 10 of them Chinese and 1 German. The minor seminary had 21 students, and the regional seminary, located at L., had 28. The auxiliary personnel comprised 14 lay religious, 86 sisters, 58 of them Chinese, 40 catechists, 44 teachers, 26 baptizers, and 34 nurses. The territory, divided into 4 foran vicariates with 30 primary and 82 secondary stations, had 16 churches and 86 chapels. The institutions included 1 hospital with 70 beds, 18 dispensaries, 3 orphanages with 125 residents, 2 homes for the elderly with 10 residents, and 1 dormitory for the poor with 60 beds. The 21 elementary schools had 1,750 children, and the 31 schools of prayer and elementary instruction had 348 pupils.
The first missionaries entered this region in the second half of the 17th century. The Jesuit Fr. Le Fèvre reached L. and Liangchow, but did not remain there long. The Franciscans of Shensi and Shansi occasionally visited the Christians who had taken refuge in Kansu during times of persecution. During the Boxer incursions, the Apostolic Vicar, Monsignor Hamer, was killed in southwestern Mongolia.