South Church 南堂
宣武门东大街
Part of A Better Guide to Běijīng’s coverage of West of the Imperial City
The South Church, St Mary’s, stands on the site of Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci’s Běijīng residence (see Christianity in China, and the Jesuit Cemetery), and its architecture is Italianate, although its history is far more interesting than its physical form. It has slightly dismal gardens at the front, with a shop called ‘Holy Things Handicraft Department’ and a Chinese-style rockery with a ceramic Virgin Mary surrounded by flowers. There’s a statue of Ricci (1552–1610) and another of Francis Xavier, co-founder of the Jesuit order (1506–1552), who was briefly buried on Chinese soil before being moved to Malacca, and again to Goa.
The cathedral is serviced by a dozen priests, all members of the government-approved Patriotic Church, which has no links with the Vatican and claims a congregation of 20,000 followers. In 1999 the government spent ¥1.3 million on repairs, and the building was given another substantial refurbishment in 2007 in anticipation of foreigner interest during the Olympics.
The first church on the site was begun by Adam Schall von Bell in 1650, with a donation from the Kāngxī emperor, and completed in 1703. It burned down in 1775. The Qiánlóng emperor offered to help with repairs, but the Jesuits had lost the rites accommodation battle (see Christianity in China) and had been suppressed by Pope Clement XIV in 1773, while hard times fell on all missionaries of whatever order who were not prepared to sign an agreement to allow Chinese Christians to continue ancestor worship and rites for Confucius, directly contradicting the Vatican’s demands.
The building (whatever there was at the time) was occupied by Portuguese Lazarists for a while in the 19th century. In 1861 the Treaty of Tiānjīn and the Conventions of Peking, which opened further treaty ports to foreigners and forced the Qīng to accept permanent foreign representatives in the capital, also returned all church property to foreign ownership. French Lazarists had the church rebuilt by 1862, but it was destroyed again in the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, which saw the deliberate targeting and execution of thousands of Chinese Christians as ersatz foreigners (‘lesser hairy ones’) and the destruction of foreign religious premises right across China.
In 1999 the government tried to ban a Chinese phrase for the new millennium that had Christian overtones (although certainly very few Chinese indeed realised that), announcing, ‘As a Communist Party member one should only believe in Marxism and dialectic materialism and not use terms like “thousand happiness year” with a religious connotation’. A few days later this same atheist government ignored protests from the Vatican and appointed several bishops, then took upon itself the authority to enthrone a child as a reincarnated lama of Tibetan Buddhism. It continues to appoint bishops (the latest in 2015) and set out rules for the reincarnation of lamas today. The atheist Chinese Communist Party may be the world’s most ecumenical organisation.
There are Catholic services here and at several other churches around Běijīng, including the Běi Táng (北堂, the North Church), a grey-blue and white neo-Gothic wedding cake in Xī Shíkù Dàjiē that was besieged and almost destroyed at the same time as the Legations in 1900. Most services are in Chinese or Korean. Here at the Nán Táng English masses are at 10am and 4pm on Sundays, Latin ones Sunday to Friday at 6am, the remainder in Chinese. The English choir is looking for new members.
▶ Nán Táng, Xuānwǔ Mén Dōng Dàjiē, open irregularly. Free. m Xuānwǔ Mén (Lines 2 & 4) exit B1. b to 宣武门东: 特2, 特4, 7, 特7, 15, 44外环, 44内环, 67, 608.
If it’s Chinese atmosphere you’re after you might find the East Church (St. Joseph’s, 东堂, Dōng Táng) in Wángfǔ Jǐng Dàjiē, or St Michael’s (东教民巷天主堂, Dōng Jiāo Mín Xiàng Tiānzhǔ Táng) in the old Legation Quarter more appealing. There’s interdenominational worship available to foreign passport-holders only elsewhere (take your passport, but don’t take Chinese friends). See www.bicf.org (non-denominational, two locations), www.cogs-bj.org (interdenominational, services held at an athletics club), and www.theriverofgrace.com (possibly protestant, held above an art gallery).
Next in West of the Imperial City: Báiyún Guàn
Previously: Christianity in China
Main Index of A Better Guide to Beijing.
For discussion of China travel, see The Oriental-List.
