It was indeed erected on March 3, 1844, under the name of the Apostolic Vicariate of Shansi, by division of the Apostolic Vicariate of Shansi and Shensi. On June 17, 1890, it ceded the entire southern part, which was erected into the Apostolic Vicariate of Southern Shansi (v. LAON), and it took the name of the Apostolic Vicariate of Northern Shansi. On March 14, 1922, it ceded six civil TATUAGGIO (v.); on December 3, 1924, it took the name of the Apostolic Vicariate of T.; on May 12, 1926, it was again Fenyang (v.) and Shohchow (v.); finally, on May 17, 1931, it ceded ten civil sub-prefectures to establish the Apostolic Prefecture of Yūtze (v.). On April 11, 1946, with the establishment of the episcopal hierarchy in China, it was elevated to a metropolitan archdiocese with the suffragan dioceses of Fenyang, LUAN, Shohchow, Tatung, and Yūtze, to which Hungtung was added in 1950. It has been entrusted since its beginning to the Order of Friars Minor, which sends religious from the regular Roman province of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul for missionary work.
It covers an area of approximately 16,000 sq. km. As of June 30, 1950, with a total population of approximately 1,500,000, there were 40,429 Catholics and 67 catechumens, served by 48 churches and 155 chapels; 25 Franciscan priests, of whom 4 were indigenous, and 17 secular Chinese priests; 10 major seminarians and 50 minor ones; 4 Chinese Franciscan scholastics and 4 lay brothers, of whom 1 was indigenous; 52 sisters, of whom 39 were Chinese; 11 catechists, 28 teachers, 9 baptizers, 3 doctors, and 8 nurses. Among its works were 1 hospital, 8 dispensaries, 2 orphanages, 2 homes for the elderly, and 14 schools with 1,222 pupils. Near T. is the regional seminary for the missions of Shansi.
Although in the 7th–8th centuries the preaching of the Nestorian heretics arrived from the neighboring Shensi province (v. SIAN), and in the 14th century that of the Franciscans John of Monte Corvino and Odoric of Pordenone, the present-day Church of Shansi dates back to the preaching of the Jesuits at the beginning of the 17th century. The Kiangchow (v.) by the Jesuit Giulio Aleni in 1620 and at T. by the Jesuit Trigault in 1635. Toward the end of the century (October 15, 1696), Shansi was united with Shensi into a single Apostolic Vicariate and entrusted to the Franciscans, the first of whom to reach T. in 1725 was Fr. Francesco M. Garretto; other confreres advanced in 1742 and 1755 as far as the Great Wall and beyond. Persecutions then slowed missionary work, which resumed around 1840 and allowed the divisions mentioned above, as well as the foundation in 1893 of a convent with a Seraphic novitiate for fostering indigenous vocations to religious life. The Boxer persecution of 1900 was particularly bloody in the mission of T., where the Apostolic Vicar, Bishop Gregorio Grassi, and his coadjutor, Bishop Francesco Fogolla, fell along with the missionaries Elia Facchini, Teodoro Balat, and Andrea Bauer, 7 Franciscan Missionaries of Mary sisters, 5 seminarians, and 9 domestic workers; all were beatified on November 24, 1947. Also killed were 7 Chinese priests, 1 mandarin, and 1,400 faithful. After the storm, peace, reparations, and the rebirth of the mission followed.