WUHU, DIOCESE OF. - In the eastern part of Anhwei Province, in central China.
It was erected on 8 August 1921 as the Apostolic Vicariate of Anhwei, by separating this civil province from the Vicariate of Nanjing; on 3 December 1924 it took the name of W.; on 21 February 1929 it ceded 16 civil subprefectures in the southwest to establish the Apostolic Prefecture of Anking, and 23 subprefectures in the north to establish Pengpu (q.v.); on 22 February 1937 it ceded another 6 in the southeast to create the Apostolic Prefecture of Tunki (q.v.); on 11 April 1946 it was elevated to a suffragan diocese of Anking. From the beginning it has been entrusted to the Society of Jesus, which sends Spanish religious from the regular province of Castile.
Area approximately 32,000 sq. km., with about 5,000,000 inhabitants, of whom 40,184 are Catholic; priests 76 (6 Chinese); sisters 78 (7 Chinese); 5 dispensaries, 1 orphanage, 55 schools (30 June 1947). In 1947 the major seminary of W. was temporarily established as a regional seminary for the missions of Anhwei and entrusted to the Society of Jesus.
In the southern part of Anhwei Province there existed, since the 18th century, two Christian communities, of which by the mid-19th century one was served by the Jesuits of Nanjing and the other by the Vincentians of Jiangxi: together they numbered 400 faithful. Despite the Taiping civil war (1852–64) and later persecutions stirred up by Chinese literati, some intolerant mandarins, and the China Inland Mission, the province was almost entirely traversed by missionaries in the second half of the 19th century, who founded Christian communities in many places. By 1891 these numbered 138 with 7,280 baptized, 2,431 catechumens, and 28 priests; by 1921 they had grown to 476 communities with 76,820 faithful, 51,591 catechumens, and 60 missionaries.