Tianjin, Diocese of

TIENTSIN, DIOCESE of. — In the northeastern part of the province of Hopeh, on the coast of the Yellow Sea.

It was erected as an apostolic vicariate, under the name of Maritime Celi, on 27 April 1912, by division of the apostolic vicariate of Northern Celi (v. PECHINO), and was entrusted to the Congregation of the Mission, which sends there, for the apostolic work, religious from the province of Paris. On 3 December 1924 it took the name of T., and on 11 April 1946, with the establishment of the episcopal hierarchy in China, it was elevated to a diocese, suffragan to Pechino. It covers an area of approximately 12,500 sq km. On 30 June 1947, out of a total population of approximately 3,500,000 inhabitants, there were 50,000 Catholics; 85 priests, 46 of them Chinese; 5 major seminarians and 25 minor seminarians; 32 lay brothers, 14 of them Chinese; and 132 sisters, 70 of them indigenous. Among its institutions were 4 hospitals, 3 dispensaries, 2 orphanages, 1 home for the elderly, and 20 schools with 6,743 pupils. T. was also the seat of Tsinkou Catholic University, run by the Jesuits, which in the 1946–47 academic year had 721 students.

In the middle of the last century, in the present territory of T., there was no priest in permanent residence: the approximately 200 Christians scattered throughout it were visited only periodically by missionaries from Pechino. Around 1858 the Chinese priest Siu was sent there; having a reputation as a skilled physician, he was able to remain in the city of T. as a pharmacist, and secretly instructed and baptized people. However, after being discovered, he was imprisoned and forced into complete inactivity. In 1869 a church was built in T., but the following year it was burned during a new persecution in which the Chinese priest Ou, Fr. Chevrier, and 10 Daughters of Charity sisters were massacred. Other serious massacres took place in 1900 at the hands of the Boxers, but by 1903 the Christians numbered 3,345, rising to 31,898 in 1911, the year preceding the establishment of T.

(photograph: Industrial Photographic Agency)
TIEPOLO, GIOVANNI BATTISTA – Adoration of the Magi – Monaco, Alte Pinakothek.