ASIA/CHINA - Sacred Heart Cathedral in archdiocese of Ji Nan, copy of Cologne Cathedral now national heritage monument

Saturday, 17 June 2006

Ji Nan (Agenzia Fides) - Sacred Heart Cathedral in archdiocese of Ji Nan, in the eastern coastal province of Shan Dong has been proclaimed a national heritage monument. Sacred Heart cathedral known to the local people simply as Hong Jia Long church, after the place Hong Jia Long in which it was built in 1905 by Franciscan missionary Corbinian Pnagger. In 1992 the church was recognised as a historic building and now it is a national heritage monument. The state experts who decided the nomination explained that “Sacred Heart Cathedral in Hong Jia Long of inestimable historic and artistic value is also of profound cultural importance”. The church was closed during the Cultural Revolution, returned to the Church in 1984, restored and reopened in 1985.
Today the church complex is smaller than the original but just as beautiful. The cathedral and its large square built by the diocese is in the city centre and attracts many visitors. The parish is active in pastoral and missionary work with catechism, pilgrimages, liturgical animation, youth and family pastoral, social services, Christian welcome for visitors (see Fides 3/6/2005).
Fr. Corbinian Pnagger started the cathedral, a copy of the famous Cathedral in Cologne in Germany, in 1902 and it was completed in 1905. It can seat one thousand people. Around various buildings were built: a major seminary, a Catholic secondary school for girls, an orphanage, a home for the elderly, Yu De secondary schools and St Joseph’s minor seminary, a clinic, a factory and a power generator.
Ji Nan apostolic Vicariate, created in 1839, was a Franciscan mission. It was made an archdiocese in 1946. According to the Guide to the Catholic Church in China 2004, there are 11 dioceses under the archdiocese of Ji Nan; there are 27, over 100 women religious, 38,000 Catholics 58 churches and 63 places of prayer, 3 congregations of women religious and a seminary. (Agenzia Fides 17/06/2006 Righe: 42 Parole: 487)


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