Yihsien [Yi County], Apostolic Prefecture of

YIHSIEN [YI COUNTY], APOSTOLIC PREFECTURE OF. - In the north-western part of the province of Hopeh (northern China).

It was erected as a mission sui iuris on 25 May 1929 with three civil subprefectures of the apostolic vicariate of Paoting (v.) and one district (Sanpuò) of that of Peking (v.), and was entrusted to the Congregation of the Priests of the Sacred Stigmata of Our Lord Jesus Christ, whose religious had been on the spot since 1927. On 9 Dec. 1935 it was elevated to an apostolic prefecture. It has an area of about 7,900 sq km. As of 30 June 1947, out of a total population of about 500,000 inhabitants, Catholics numbered 6,300; priests 16, of whom 6 were Chinese; major seminarians 2, minor seminarians 18; lay brothers 1; sisters 39, of whom only 3 were foreign. Among the works were 1 hospital, 2 orphanages, 3 medicine dispensaries, 14 schools.

The evangelization of the territory of Y. began in the first decades of the last century through the work of the missionaries of Peking: the field presented itself as particularly difficult, even a century later. Of the 2,472 Christians ceded to the Stigmatines in 1927, the descendants of the first converts formed a notable nucleus of about 500 faithful in the subprefecture of Kwangchang and a smaller one of about 150 in that of Laishui; the others were all neophytes, distributed in 18 small centers.

Adamo Pucci