Sining, Apostolic Prefecture of
It comprises the entire civil province of the Stinghai or Kokonor, in central-western China.
It was erected under the name of S. from the city which is the capital seat of the Ordinary, on 4 Feb. 1937, and was entrusted to the Society of the Divine Word. Its territory previously Lanchow (v.). It has an area of about 700,000 sq. km. As of 30 June 1948, out of a total population of about 1,500,000 inhabitants, there were 372 Catholics and 1,376 catechumens; 12 priests, of whom Chinese; 1 major seminarian, 16 minor seminarians; 22 sisters, of whom 12 indigenous; 16 catechists, 12 teachers. Among the works were 1 hospital, 4 dispensaries, 1 orphanage, 1 foundling home, and 8 schools.
It seems that in the 6th-8th centuries the preaching of Nestorian missionaries reached these regions; that in the 16th century the Jesuits arrived, followed in the 18th and 19th centuries by the Franciscans; but perhaps these were only individual missionaries who took refuge in those distant and tranquil places to escape persecution. Proper preaching began with the arrival of the Scheut missionaries, who came in 1878 and remained until 1922, when they moved to Mongolia, leaving the Kansu mission, to which the province of Kokonor was attached, to the Verbite religious, who had been on site for about ten years.