St. Joseph's Church, Beijing

The congregation was first established in 1653 by Father Lodovico Buglio, an Italian Jesuit astronomer and theologian who worked as a missionary to China;[3][4] and Father Gabriel de Magalhães, a Portuguese Jesuit.[5] Both worked previously in Sichuan. The land the first church building was constructed on was donated to the religious order by the Shunzhi Emperor.[6] At the time, the Jesuits were the only group of people from Europe given permission to reside in the capital city, on account of their insight into astronomy.[7] As a result, the church also served as the residence of Buglio and another fellow Jesuit priest.[8]

The church underwent an extremely turbulent history.[6] An earthquake which struck Beijing in 1720 damaged the building.[1] Approximately ninety years later, the church building was obliterated by fire and the remnants that survived were destroyed as a result of the government's anti-Western sentiments and policies. The site remained barren until 1860, when British and French forces invaded Beijing as part of the Second Opium War. Thereafter, foreign missionaries, who were once again allowed into the capital, rebuilt St. Joseph's.[6] However, anti-foreign sentiment never faded away and arose once again at the turn of the century, culminating in the Boxer Rebellion. At the height of the uprising in 1900, the church building was "burned to the ground".[7]

St. Joseph's was rebuilt in 1904 utilizing Romanesque Revival architecture, featuring pilasters and three bell towers.[8]

In 1949, Communist forces under Mao Zedong emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil War.[9] The new atheistic regime broke off all diplomatic relations with the Holy See two years later,[10] and attempted to eliminate all forms of religion by either seizing or destroying churches and other places of worship.[9] St. Joseph's suffered the same fate and, in the 1950s, it was expropriated to the government, who then turned it into an elementary school.[7] The communist government further tightened their control on the Catholic Church in China by establishing the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA) in 1957.[11] As a result, the church of St. Joseph's has been under the administration of the CPCA since that year and its parish priests are not recognized by the Vatican.[12]

The church was closed down altogether in 1966—the first year of the Cultural Revolution—and suffered further damage during this period of time until the end of the revolution in 1976.[1]

How to get there: take Beijing metro line no. 1 to Wangfujing station. Walk north along Wangfujing Street for 10 minutes: church is on your right.

The church and its small square

The Chinese government under Deng Xiaoping subsequently repudiated the Cultural Revolution. At the Fourth Plenum of the Eleventh National Party Congress Central Committee in September 1979, a key document was tabled that evaluated the entire 30-year period of Communist rule. At the plenum, party Vice Chairman Ye Jianying declared the Cultural Revolution "an appalling catastrophe" and "the most severe setback to [the] socialist cause since [1949]."[13] The Chinese government's condemnation of the Cultural Revolution culminated in the Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party Since the Founding of the People's Republic of China, adopted by the Sixth Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. It stated that "Comrade Mao Zedong was a great Marxist and a great proletarian revolutionary, strategist and theorist. It is true that he made gross mistakes during the "cultural revolution", but, if we judge his activities as a whole, his contributions to the Chinese revolution far outweigh his mistakes. His merits are primary and his errors secondary."[14] Furthermore, Deng briefly allowed free speech to flourish, thus permitting open and public criticism of the government to take place. Known as the Beijing Spring, this led to a universal condemnation of the Cultural Revolution throughout the country.[15]

The change in prevailing political views was favorable to St. Joseph's Church; the Beijing municipal government funded the church's restoration efforts.[2] The refurbished building reopened in 1980 for Catholic services.[8] Another significant renovation on the church was completed in September 2000.[2][6] On July 16, 2007, Fr. Joseph Li Shan—the then-parish priest of St. Joseph's—was elected as the new Archbishop of Beijing by the CPCA.[16] Although no official Vatican statement was issued, Pope Benedict XVI expressed his approval of the appointment, making Li one of the few bishops in China to have the support of both the government and the Holy See.[17][18]