Siwantze [Chongli], Diocese of

SIWANTZE [CHONGLI], Diocese of. - A suffragan of Suiyüan, it is located in the northern part of the civil province of Chagar (Mongolia), has an area of 250,000 sq. km. and a population of 1,000,000 inhabitants, of whom 39,356 are Catholics.

On June 28, 1840, the apostolic vicariate of Mongolia was detached from that of Manchuria; on Dec. 11, 1883, it was divided into the three vicariates of southwestern, eastern and central Mongolia; the latter, on March 14, 1922, was divided into two circumscriptions: the mission sui iuris of Outer Mongolia (Urga) and the apostolic vicariate of Tchagar, which on Dec. 3, 1924, took its present name of S. In 1929 the territory was dismembered for the erection of the apostolic vicariate (today diocese) of Tsining. The apostolic vicariate of S. was elevated to a diocese on Apr. 11, 1946. On Jan. 18, 1948, by detachment from the diocese of Suanhwa, the part of the city of Kalgan lying to the west of the Ts'ing Choeho river was annexed to the diocese of S.

The church of S. is a large building in Romanesque style, dominated by two towers, and can hold about two thousand people. Beside the church are grouped the works of the mission: schools, seminary, orphanage, dispensaries, religious communities. Contrary to the great majority of the agricultural Christian communities of this region, S. was not, as a village, founded by the Church. According to tradition, in the first year of Choent-che, that is, in 1644, a family by the name of Tchang, originally from Moukden, came to settle in this place. Fifty years later, this village already counted a fair-sized group of Christians, who gathered in a chapel and, as a sign of their community spirit, buried their dead in a common cemetery. Later they were visited periodically by some priests from Peking. During the persecution of the 18th century they lived as refugees in the mountains that enclose the village of S. In 1836 the Lazarist fathers founded the first school for boys and afterward set up a printing press to provide school texts. On Dec. 6, 1865, the missionaries of Scheut, led by their founder, Fr. Verbist, arrived in Mongolia. With the death of Msgr. Leo de Smedt, who died as a result of the sufferings endured in prison under the communist regime, on Oct. 25, 1951, the mission passed to the Chinese secular clergy. According to statistical data prior to the current communist domination in Mongolia, the missionary personnel was as follows: priests: 58 native, 47 foreign; major seminarians 14; sisters: 74 native and 12 foreign.

Edoardo Pecoraio