Ganjiaxiang - Protestant church - P1070518

Christianity is a minority religion in

Jiangsu Jiangsu is a coastal Provinces of the People's Republic of China, province in East China. It is one of the leading provinces in finance, education, technology, and tourism, with its capital in Nanjing. Jiangsu is the List of Chinese administra ...

province of China. Elsewhere in China, Christians are found in significant numbers in Henan, in Anhui and in Shandong. The number of Christians in Jiangsu has been estimated at 125,000 for 1985, at 250,000 for 1988, at 400,000 for 1989, at 640,000 for 1991 and at 900,000 for 1995 according to Religious Affairs Bureau of Jiangsu Province. These figures possibly are underestimates. The country has

persecution of Christians The persecution of Christians can be historically traced from the first century of the Christian era to the present day. Christian missionaries and converts to Christianity have both been targeted for persecution, sometimes to the point ...

Amity Foundation The Amity Foundation ( zh, s=爱德基金会, t=愛德基金會 , p=Àidé Jījīnhuì) is an independent Chinese voluntary organization. it is the largest Charitable organization, charity in China. It was created in 1985 on the initiative of ...

, its general secretary being

Qiu Zhonghui Qiu Zhonghui also known as Chiu Chung-Hui is a former international table-tennis player from China and won China's first women's world title in the World Table Tennis Championships of 1961. Table tennis career From 1956 to 1963 she won ten meda ...

, has its seat in

Nanjing Nanjing or Nanking is the capital of Jiangsu, a province in East China. The city, which is located in the southwestern corner of the province, has 11 districts, an administrative area of , and a population of 9,423,400. Situated in the Yang ...

.https://archive.today/20120721160258/http://www.amityfoundation.org/wordpress/?page_id=1340

History

Presence of Christians in Jiangsu has been attested as early as the 14th century (see

Katarina Vilioni Katarina Vilioni (died 1342) was an Italians, Italian woman and one of the Europeans in Medieval China, first Europeans known to have resided in China. She was a member of an Italian, likely Venetian or perhaps Genoese, trading family that lived i ...

), but when the

Jesuit missionaries The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rome. It was founded in 1540 ...

reached the province in the late 16th century, they were not able to find any Christians there.

Matteo Ricci Matteo Ricci (; ; 6 October 1552 – 11 May 1610) was an Italian Jesuit priest and one of the founding figures of the Jesuit China missions. He created the , a 1602 map of the world written in Chinese characters. In 2022, the Apostolic See decl ...

himself was based in Nanjing for a while, and since then the province had a significant missionary presence, not always entirely welcome by the local population (see e.g. the

Yangzhou riot The Yangzhou riot of August 22–23, 1868 was a brief crisis in Anglo-Chinese relations during the late Qing dynasty. The crisis was fomented by the gentry of Yangzhou who opposed the presence of foreign Christian missionaries in the city, who cl ...

of 1868). During the

Taiping Rebellion The Taiping Rebellion, also known as the Taiping Civil War or the Taiping Revolution, was a civil war in China between the Qing dynasty and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. The conflict lasted 14 years, from its outbreak in 1850 until the fall of ...

, Jiangsu was partly controlled by the rebels, who established their capital in Nanjing, and whose ideology was significantly influenced by Christianity.

Roman Catholic dioceses with seat in Jiangsu

* Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Nanking *

Roman Catholic Diocese of Haimen The Diocese of Haimen (, ) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church located in Haimen (Nantong), China. It is a suffragan diocese in the ecclesiastical province of the metropolitan Archdiocese and Nanjing. Hi ...

* Roman Catholic Diocese of Suzhou *

Roman Catholic Diocese of Xuzhou The Roman Catholic Diocese of Xuzhou/Süchow (, ) is a diocese located in the city of Xuzhou (Jiangsu) in the ecclesiastical province of Nanjing in China. History * July 1, 1931: Established as Apostolic Prefecture of Xuzhou 徐州 from the Apos ...

References

{{Christianity in China Religion in Jiangsu Christianity in China by location

History

Roman Catholic dioceses with seat in Jiangsu

See also

References