SIANGYANG, DIOCESI of. — In the northern part of the province of Hupeh, in central China.
It was erected as an apostolic prefecture on 25 May 1936, with four civil subprefectures of the apostolic vicariate of Laohokow, and was entrusted to the Chinese secular clergy; on 11 May 1951 it was raised to a suffragan diocese of Hankow.
It covers approximately 15,000 sq. km. As of 30 June 1949, out of a total population of approximately 1,500,000 inhabitants, there were 20,047 Catholics and 15,546 catechumens; 22 priests, of whom 2 were foreign; 54 minor seminaries; 28 Chinese and 6 foreign nuns. The institutions included 2 hospitals, 1 orphanage, 1 home for the elderly, and 4 schools with 367 pupils.
In the time of the emperor Kanghsi (1662–1722), Christian communities existed in S. and in various villages near the towns of Tsaoyang and Nanchang. After 1838, the year in which the apostolic vicariate of Hukwang (Hupeh and Hunan) was erected, European missionaries and Chinese priests who were former students of the Chinese College of the Holy Family, founded in Naples by the venerable Matteo Ripa, worked in the territory of S. Frequent disturbances and persecutions forced many of the faithful to emigrate, while others apostatized. In 1870 the Catholics had been reduced to 1,325, rising to 19,987 in 1935.
SIBA (ebr. S'ibla) “twig”. — A foreigner (note the Aramaic form of the name) Saul (v.), a slave or servant in the King’s household. Having become free, perhaps upon the fall of Saul, he had established a large family (15 sons and 20 servants), but David placed him Miphiboseth (v.) as a tenant farmer (II Sam. 9, 9 ff.). He had to accept this, but at the first opportunity he sought to shake off the yoke.
When Absalom rebelled, S. prevented his master Miphiboseth from following David and indeed accused him before the king of siding with the rebel: the King immediately made him master of all that he administered (ibid. 16, 1-4). Once the revolt had ended and after hearing Miphiboseth’s excuses, David nevertheless left him half of the estates (ibid. 19, 24-30). S. is the true type of the unscrupulous profiteer. Gino Bressan