PAYEN, GEORGE. - Canonist, b. in Nantes on 15 Apr. 1862, d. in Shanghai on 29 June 1940.
Having entered the Society of Jesus in 1880, after several years of teaching in France (1890–1904), he went to China to teach theology (dogmatic and moral) and canon law at the Major College and the Seminary of Zikawei, where for 36 years he was master of young confreres and seminarians in Shanghai. He also taught medical deontology to students of the Aurora University Faculty of Medicine in Shanghai for nearly 25 years. He was chosen as theological consultant to the First Plenary Council of China and entrusted with drafting its decrees.
Among his principal writings are: Monita Nantes, kinensia, Zikawei 1918; 2nd ed., 2 vols., 1933; Quaestiones de Baptismo, 3 vols., 1929–30; De Matrimonio in missionibus ac potissimum in Sinis, 1928–30; 2nd ed. 1935–36 (which received the highest approvals); Deontologie médicale d'après le droit naturel, 1922; 2nd ed. 1935.