Taiyüan, Archdiocese of

TAIYÜAN, ARCHDIOCESE OF. - In the center of the province of Shansi, in northern China: it is the mother mission of all the missions of Shansi.

Erected in fact under the name of apostolic vicariate of Shansi on March 3, 1844, by division of the apostolic vicariate of Shensi and Shansi, on June 17, 1890 it ceded the entire southern part, which was erected into the apostolic vicariate of Southern Shansi (v. LUAN), and it took the name of apostolic vicariate of Northern Shansi. On March 14, 1922 it ceded 6 civil subprefectures for the erection of Tatung (v.); on Dec. 3, 1924 it took the name of apostolic vicariate of T.; on May 12, 1926 it was again divided for the erection of Fenyang (v.) and of Shohchow (v.); finally on May 17, 1931 it ceded 10 civil subprefectures to give life to the apostolic prefecture of Yütze (v.). On Apr. 11, 1946, with the institution of the episcopal hierarchy in China, it was elevated to a metropolitan archdiocese with the suffragan dioceses of Fenyang, Luan, Shohchow, Tatung and Yütze, to which in 1950 Hungtung was added. It has been entrusted from the beginning to the Order of Friars Minor, which for the missionary work sends there the religious of the Roman regular province of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul.

It has an extension of about 16,000 sq km. As of June 30, 1950, out of a total population of about 1,500,000 inhabitants, Catholics numbered 40,429 and catechumens 67, served by 48 churches and 155 chapels; the Franciscan priests were 25, of whom 4 were indigenous, and 17 those of the Chinese secular clergy; major seminarians 10, minor 50; 4 Chinese Franciscan students and 4 lay brothers, of whom 1 was indigenous: the sisters were 52, of whom 39 were Chinese; catechists 11, teachers 28, baptizers 9, doctors 3 and nurses 8. Among the works were 1 hospital, 8 medicine dispensaries, 2 orphanages, 2 hospices for the elderly, 14 schools with 1222 pupils. Near T. is located the regional seminary for the missions of Shansi.

Although in the 7th-8th centuries the preaching of the Nestorian heretics reached there, from the neighboring province of Shensi (v. SIAN), and in the 14th century that of the Franciscans Giovanni da Monte Corvino and Odorico da Pordenone. The present-day Church of Shansi dates back to the preaching of the Jesuits at the beginning of the 17th century. The first neophytes were baptized at Kiangchow (v.) by the Jesuit Giulio Aleni in 1620 and at T. by the Jesuit Trigault in 1635: toward the end of the century (on Oct. 15, 1696) Shansi was united with Shensi in a single apostolic vicariate and was entrusted to the Franciscans, of whom the first to reach T., in 1725, was Fr. Francesco M. Garretto; other confreres pushed on in the years 1742, 1755 as far as the Great Wall and even beyond. Then came persecutions to slow the missionary work, which was able to resume around 1840 and permitted the divisions mentioned above, and the foundation, in 1893, of a convent with a Seraphic novitiate for the cultivation of indigenous vocations to the religious life. The persecution of the Boxers, in 1900, was particularly bloody in the mission of T., where fell the apostolic vicar Msgr. Gregorio Grassi and his coadjutor Msgr. Francesco Fogolla with the missionaries Elia Facchini, Teodoro Balat and Andrea Bauer, 7 Franciscan Missionary Sisters of Mary, 5 seminarians and 9 servants, all beatified on Nov. 24, 1947. There also perished 7 Chinese priests, 1 mandarin and 1400 faithful. After the storm, peace, reparations, the rebirth of the mission.

Adamo Pucci