SIAN, ARCHDIOCESE of. — In the center of the province of Shensi, in northern China.
It may be said to have been erected, under the name of the apostolic vicariate of Shansi and Shensi, on 15 October 1696, when those two provinces, together with the province of Kansu, were detached from the diocese of Peking and constituted as an autonomous mission: it is then that the series of the Ordinaries of S. is considered to begin, with Fr. Basilio Brollo da Gemona (d. in 1704). On 3 March 1844 the apostolic vicariate of Shensi was erected, also comprising Kansu and the apostolic vicariate of Shansi. The former, from which Kansu had been detached on 21 June 1878 (v. LANCHOW), was divided on 2 August 1887 into the apostolic vicariates of southern Shensi (v. HANCHUNG) and northern Shensi; the latter was again divided on 11 April 1911 into the apostolic vicariates of northern Shensi (v. YENAN) and central Shensi, which on 3 December 1924 took the name of Sianfu. In 1928 it ceded three civil subprefectures for the erection of Hingan; in 1931 it ceded 16 Sanyuan (v.) and 12 Tungchow (v.); then in 1932 it ceded 6 for the erection of Chowchih and 6 FENGTIEN (v.). On 11 April 1946, with the establishment of the episcopal hierarchy in China, S. was elevated to a metropolitan archdiocese of the ecclesiastical province of Shensi, with the suffragan dioceses of Fengsiang, Hanchung, Sanyilan, Yonan, to which the diocese of Chowchih was added on 10 March 1951. From the beginning it was entrusted to the Order of Friars Minor, which sends Italian religious there for missionary work from the Tuscan regular province of S. Bonaventure.
It has an area of 12 sq km. On 30 June 1948, out of approximately 1,500,000 inhabitants, there were 13,795 Catholics and 2,945 catechumens. In addition to the archbishop, there worked there 9 Chinese secular priests and 16 Franciscan priests, 1 of them Chinese; 61 sisters, 48 of them Chinese; 24 catechists, 69 teachers, 29 baptizers, 2 physicians, and 15 nurses. The institutions comprised 1 seminary, 1 hospital, 9 dispensaries, and 1 orphanage. The territory was divided into 15 primary and 128 secondary stations, with 11 churches and 68 chapels. The 11 elementary schools had 1,552 pupils, and the secondary school 346.
In S., then the capital of China, Christianity, in the form of the Nestorian heresy, first appeared in 635, and from S. spread to the most remote provinces of the Empire during the seventh and eighth centuries; but, it seems, it won very few converts among the Chinese. Historical certainty concerning this first evangelization followed the discovery of the famous stele of S., carved on 4 February 781 and brought to light by the Jesuits in 1625. Blessed Odorico da Pordenone (fourteenth century) stayed in S. on his return journey to Europe. Evangelization was resumed at the beginning of the seventeenth century by the Jesuits, summoned there by the mandarin Wancheng, who had been baptized by them (v. SANYUAN). They, among whom Fr. Stefano Fabre, who died in S. in 1659, deserves particular remembrance, gave systematic impetus to the mission, and their work was continued by the Franciscans, some of whom pushed as far as the Great Wall, such as Fr. Gabriele da Torino in 1742 and Fr. Giambattista da Serravalle in 1755. Nevertheless, serious persecutions, which occurred repeatedly from 1724 to 1843, prevented the prosperous development of Christianity, which, on the contrary, gained more numerous converts in the first half of this century; yet even then, beginning in 1926, there were disturbances to missionary work caused by almost continuous incursions of brigand bands entering from Honan, or by those that arose locally, and, for nearly two decades, also by Communist unrest. The apostolic vicar De Donato (1843–48) established the mission’s see at Tungyuanfang, where it remained until 1923.