China Mission

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Missionaries around 1900 during the Qing Dynasty
Catholic Mission in Qingdao
The Jesuit Johann Adam Schall von Bell (1592–1666) in the clothes of a mandarin

The China mission is the history of the spread of Christianity in the German Empire and in the People's Republic of China .

history

The first contacts between the Empire of China and Christianity, which can still be documented in Chinese sources, date back to 635 AD, when missionaries of the Assyrian Church of the East reached China. This direction of Christianity is called Nestorianism . A plaque from 781 AD commemorates the arrival of the first Nestorian monk Alopes. They were welcomed by Emperor Tai Zong and given permission to preach. As a result, several monasteries were founded, Christian literature was produced in the Chinese language and a metropolitanate for China was established. Most of the converts, however, are likely to have been non-Chinese. An imperial edict from 845 forbade Buddhism and Christianity and the unrest towards the end of the Tang Dynasty led to a further decline, so that monks who came to China in the year could no longer find any trace of Christians.

In the 11th century the Assyrian Church of the East initiated new missionaries among the Keraites , who were practically Christianized, and Uighurs . Genghis Khan married his son Tolui to the Christian Keraitic princess Sorkhatani Beki , who became the mother of Kublai Khan . The favorite wife of Kublai Khan's brother Hülegü was a Christian Keraitic princess. In 1278 a report even reached the Pope that Kublai Khan had been baptized. Under the Mongols, China was again open to the Christians. The Assyrian Church of the East had an archbishop in Beijing and there were parishes and monasteries in several Chinese cities. Kublain Khan asked the Pope in Rome for a hundred learned men who believed in Christ.

The Catholic Church sent Franciscans and Dominicans as missionaries, and an Italian Franciscan, John of Montecorvino , built a Catholic Church in Beijing in 1305, translated the New Testament and Psalms, and gained about 6,000 converts. The last reports from Franciscan missionaries reached the papal court in 1353. From then on China isolated itself from the west until the Portuguese settled in Macau .

In the 17th and 18th centuries, Jesuit missionaries sent by the Portuguese king , such as Matteo Ricci , traveled to the country and proselytized among the population. Her scientific and technical skills were particularly valued; the Christianity itself found little appeal in China. The so-called accommodation enabled converts to maintain their own rites, such as ancestor worship and the worship of Confucius and Laoti . After the missionaries' initial successes, the so-called rite dispute led to a setback. When Pope Benedict XIV banned Chinese rites in 1742, missionary activity in China was banned and Christianity came under pressure.

In 1807, Robert Morrison, a Presbyterian from Scotland , arrived in the only city of Guangzhou open to foreign merchants . Some Chinese were converted to Jesus Christ . Morrison dedicated himself to translating the Bible and was an important pioneer. In the 19th century, the English maintained a missionary society in China, the Chinese Evangelization Society. Hudson Taylor initially worked with her, but in 1857, disappointed in the conditions and workings of the missionaries, separated from her. Taylor founded the Inland China Mission in 1865 , which evangelized in all provinces of China in the 19th century. In 1900 the Boxer Rebellion began in China, which also claimed many victims among the employees of the Hudson Taylors Mission Society. In 1902 Taylor handed over the leadership of the China Inland Mission to E. Hoste.

In 1949, China had 1.2 million Protestant church members and 3 million Catholics. As elsewhere in China, foreign missionaries worked to ensure that the Chinese congregations could manage themselves as quickly as possible, finance themselves and expand themselves due to a lack of staff. Since foreign missionaries had to leave China, Christianity was spread through Chinese preachers. The three-selves principle was institutionalized by the first national Christian conference in China in 1954 and became the proper name of the state-controlled church, which was infiltrated by the communists. Especially under Mao Zedong , the Chinese Communist Party tried to abolish Christianity as well. During the Cultural Revolution , all religious activities were forced underground and it was not known abroad whether there were any Christians in China at all.

today

Today, Catholicism and Protestantism, along with Buddhism , Daoism and Islam , are recognized religions in China. However, the official churches are strictly controlled by the government . Relatives, especially leaders of underground churches that have not been officially approved , can still expect imprisonment.

Christianity has grown rapidly since 1977: The official Protestant churches now have 17 million members, the Catholic Church 12 million, plus an estimated 45 million Christians in house churches of the underground church. Another estimate from the year 2000 is 58 million Christians in the underground church.

See also

literature

in order of appearance

  • Irmgard Hansen: The open door. From reports from the Breklum China Mission . Jensen, Breklum 1949.
  • Kilian Pflaum: The Bavarian Franciscans' China Mission in War and Civil War . Solanus. Landshut 1950.
  • Johannes Schütte: The Catholic Mission to China in the mirror of the Red Chinese press. Attempt at a missionary interpretation . Aschendorff, Münster 1957.
  • George Dunne: The great example. The Jesuit Mission to China . Schwabenverlag, Stuttgart 1965.
  • Wenchao Li: The Christian China Mission in the 17th Century. Understanding, incomprehension, misunderstanding. A study of the history of ideas on Christianity, Buddhism and Confucianism . Steiner, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-515-07452-X .
  • Handbook of Christianity in China (= Handbook of Oriental Studies , Section 4: China ). Brill, suffering.
  • Gary Tiedemann: Reference guide to Christian missionary societies in China. From the 16th to the 20th centuries . ME Sharpe, Armonk 2009, ISBN 978-0-7656-1808-5 .
  • Rita Haub , Paul Oberholzer: Matteo Ricci and the Emperor of China. Jesuit mission in the Middle Kingdom . Echter, Würzburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-429-03226-5 .
  • Karl-Fritz Daiber: Protestantism and Confucian Culture. Aspects of their assignment in China and South Korea . Lit, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-643-13653-4 .

Web links

Commons : Christianity in China  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. David H. Adeney: God's Kingdom in China. The "long march" of the Chinese Church. Aussaat, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1991, ISBN 3-7615-2477-3 , p. 27.
  2. David H. Adeney: God's Kingdom in China. The "long march" of the Chinese Church. Aussaat, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1991, ISBN 3-7615-2477-3 , p. 28.
  3. David H. Adeney: God's Kingdom in China. The "long march" of the Chinese Church. Aussaat, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1991, ISBN 3-7615-2477-3 , p. 30.
  4. ^ A b Patrick J. Johnstone: Prayer for the World. World Mission Handbook. 5th German edition. Hänssler, Holzgerlingen 2003, ISBN 3-7751-3722-X .
  5. Britt Towery: Christians in China. Oncken, Wuppertal / Kassel 1987, ISBN 3-7893-3300-X , p. 35.
  6. Paul Hattaway: Heavenly Man. 2nd Edition. Brunnen, Gießen / Basel 2004, ISBN 3-7655-3788-8 , p. 261.