YENKI, DIOCESE OF. - It is located in the eastern part of Manchuria and comprises the entire civil prefecture of the same name, subdivided into two sub-prefectures, with a surface area of 63,770 sq. km. and a population of 1,200,000 inhabitants.
Erected on 19 March 1928 as an apostolic prefecture by dismemberment from the present diocese of Kirin, it was entrusted to the Benedictine Congregation of St Ottilia. It was elevated to an apostolic vicariate on 13 April 1937 and to a suffragan diocese of Moukden on 11 April 1946. This mission, from 1945 to the present, has undergone the two ordeals of the Russian regime. The last eight missionaries of St Ottilia left the diocese in August 1952. At present, only one Chinese priest remains, along with two sisters, who live in private.
Bishop Teodoro Breher died in November 1950 as a result of the ill-treatment and privations suffered in prison. The diocese, as of 1953, is nominally governed by an apostolic administrator. According to statistical data from 1945, the missionary personnel consisted of 20 Benedictines and 8 indigenous priests; 14 foreign brothers and 1 national; 18 foreign sisters and 14 indigenous. There were 18,000 Catholics.
Until 1934, the territory of Y. was commonly known by the name of Kanto, where the Gospel arrived without missions. In 1896, a Korean inhabitant of Kanto went to Wonsan (in proper Korea) and there received instruction and baptism from Fr Vermorel of the Paris Foreign Missions. The following year, the zealous neophyte returned with 12 people he had himself catechised, who were also baptised. A catechist was then sent to Kanto and, until 1908, a missionary visited the new Christian community every year. In 1910, a Korean priest also went there, settling in the area together with two other fathers from the Paris Foreign Missions. In 1921, the Benedictines of St Ottilia took charge of the Y. region. Within just six years, the number of Christians rose from 7,000 to 12,000. In 1934, in the city of Y., the abbey of the Holy Cross was canonically erected, and the appointment of the abbot fell to the same person as the apostolic vicar, Bishop Breher.