Chen Xilu

Mattia Chen Xilu , also Mathias Chen Xilu , ( Chinese  陈锡禄 , Pinyin Chén Xīlù ; born February 6, 1928 in Ji, Hebei Province , Republic of China ; † January 16, 2008 in Hengshui , People's Republic of China ) was Roman Catholic Bishop of Hengshui in Hebei, China . He spent 20 years in Chinese prisons and labor camps for his belief.

Life

Mattia Chen Xilu came from a Chinese family that has been Catholic for generations. He initially trained as a primary school teacher, but entered the seminary of the Shanghai diocese in 1950 . Officially he studied during his priestly formation medicine . In 1955 he was ordained a priest by the Bishop of Shanghai Ignatius Kung Pin-Mei .

He then worked officially as a doctor and at the same time as a pastor in the Catholic underground church . In China the Catholic Church is regulated by the state; recognition of the Roman Catholic Church under papal authority is prohibited. In 1951, by order of the state, relations with the Vatican were broken off.

Mattia Chen Xilu was first arrested in 1958 and sentenced to seven years in prison and three years in a labor camp. After his release in 1969, he was arrested again and detained in a labor camp for another ten years. After his release in 1979 he worked as an English teacher and worked underground as a priest. It was not until 1980 that he was able to exercise his priesthood in public; he also founded the eye clinic, the Catholic Xi ​​Lu Optical, and practiced there. He was Vicar General of Hengshui and was appointed coadjutor of Bishop Pietro Fan Wenxing by Pope John Paul II in 1996 . In 1999 he succeeded Pietro Fan Wenxing in the office of Bishop of Hengshui.

After a cerebral haemorrhage in 2002, he was in a coma until his death. Pietro Feng Xinmao led the diocese as coadjutor since the beginning of 2004 .

Web links

• Bishop Chen Xilu dies - 20 years in communist labor camps
• China: Unity Bishop has died
• Comatose elderly bishop of Hengshui dies

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Bishop Feng. In: UCAN Directory. Diocese of Hengshui, accessed April 13, 2018 . 

Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Chinese. Chen is the family name here, Xilu is the first name.