Catholic Sankt Joseph Freinademetz congregation German language in Beijing

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Statue of Joseph Freinademetz in St Joseph's Chapel of Yim Tin Tsai (Sai ​​Kung) , Hong Kong

The Catholic Sankt Joseph Freinademetz Congregation German Language in Beijing is a Roman Catholic parish in Beijing .

History of the community

There were German-language Catholic masses in Beijing as early as the 1980s , which were celebrated with the Jesuit priest Prof. Neyer. In the 1980s and 1990s, Neyer was director of German studies at Sophia University in Tokyo and traveled to Beijing especially for the holy masses. From 1987 a German-speaking priest was available for holy masses in the Beijing area. The German ambassador Hanspeter Hellbeck and his administration welcomed the German-speaking Catholics very hospitably in the rooms of the German embassy , so that community life could develop quickly. The cornerstones of community life were:

  • 1988 recorded the first first holy communion with eight communion children .
  • 1988 Foundation of a Bible study group .
  • In 1990 first communion could be celebrated with ten communion children in the Beijing St. Michael's Church.
  • 1992 first recorded baptism and first recorded donation of confirmation .
  • 1996 The Essen bishop Hubert Luthe visited Beijing and gave confirmation to eight young Christians.

At the end of the 1990s the Beijing priestly position became vacant and the congregation was looked after by the German-speaking pastor Birtel (and later Rotermann) from Manila for one to two years . First communion is celebrated even in this difficult time and services are still held in Beijing.

In 2001, a local council working group was founded and the ecumenical work with the Protestant German language congregation in Beijing (EGDS) and Pastor Heinke was strengthened. An ecumenical Bible study group, an ecumenical singing group and an ecumenical Taize prayer group were founded by both congregations, several ecumenical services were celebrated each year and an ecumenical Bible day was organized every year.

Since then, the parish has also been represented at the regular pastoral conferences of German pastors abroad in Asia and organized them itself in spring 2010. Other highlights in the community's history were

  • 2006 visit of Prelate Prassel, when the congregation receives the China missionary Joseph Freinademetz from South Tyrol as patron saint .
  • In 2008 the parish received Pastor Michael Bauer, a pastor who looked after the German-speaking Catholics in Beijing and Shanghai . The Catholics in Shanghai are organized in the German-speaking Christian Congregation Shanghai (DCGS).
  • 2009 Visit of Archbishop Ludwig Schick from Bamberg with a small delegation from the German Bishops' Conference . During his visit, the Archbishop donated the sacrament of Confirmation to eleven young Christians .
  • In 2010, on May 16, 2010, ten communion children received the sacrament of First Communion and on June 13, seven young Christians received the sacrament of Confirmation from Pastor Bauer. Three young people were baptized in the same year.

Church life

First communion in the German embassy in Beijing in 2009

The St. Joseph Freinademetz congregation was founded with the aim of being a religious home for the German-speaking population of the capital of the Middle Kingdom and of rooting a piece of German culture in Beijing. It is the contact point for visitors to the city and foreigners who live and work in Beijing or the surrounding area.

The center of community life is formed by the holy masses that take place every Saturday in the European hall of the German embassy . The other sacraments of the Catholic Church can also be received in German in Beijing. Every autumn groups are set up to prepare for First Communion and Confirmation. Baptisms, weddings and anointing of the sick are donated or carried out individually after consultation with Pastor Michael Bauer. The congregation also participates in German cultural life in China's capital (for example with a lantern parade on Martin's Day , an ecumenical Bible day, participation in the Christmas bazaar of the German embassy, ​​several ecumenical church services per year, congregational excursions / camps , retreats , event days / evenings for young people and various groups such as ecumenical Bible study, ecumenical Taizegebetskreis, altar boys ...).

The patron saint Joseph Freinademetz came to China as a missionary in the 19th century and testified to Jesus Christ , especially in Shandong Province . The community sees this tradition and its peaceful example as an obligation to live together in harmony and togetherness with the other Christian communities in China and Beijing and to actively develop the ecumenical movement. There are contacts with the German-speaking Protestant congregation in Beijing (EGDS), the local bishop of Beijing, with various other congregations abroad in Beijing and with the other German-speaking Christian congregations in China.

Patron saint of the community

The Holy Josef Freinademetz was on 15 April 1852 in Oies in the Italian Dolomites born as the fourth child of a peasant family. He spent his childhood in poor conditions in the high mountains of the Dolomites before he studied in Brixen and in 1878 he joined the Steyler Mission Society . Together with Johann Baptist Anzer he went to China as a missionary and reached Shandong Province in 1881 . He founded several mission houses and churches in the south of the province until he died on January 28, 1908 in Taijia.

Joseph Freinademetz never returned to Europe after being sent to China in 1879, although he was invited to Steyl in 1900 for the anniversary of the Steyl missionaries . However, he kept in contact with his family until the end of his life and thus represented a link between European and Chinese society.

Today there are pilgrimage sites both in Shandong (for example at his grave) and in Europe (for example at his birthplace in Abtei (South Tyrol) ) that attract many Christians every year. For this reason, Joseph Freinademetz soon met the prerequisites for popular veneration and was appointed by Pope Paul VI in 1975 . Beatified and canonized by Pope John Paul II in 2003 .

literature

  • Philip Clart: The Religions of China. Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-8252-3260-3 .
  • Josef Rivinus: Beginnings of the missionary work of the Steyler Missionaries (SVD) in China, taking into account the political and social environment of Fr. Josef Freinademetz , In: China heute 19 (2000), 46–56
  • Johannes Baur: Father Joseph Freinademetz SVD. Steyler Verlag 1956, OCLC 65908197 .
  • Jakob Reuter: Josef Freinademetz: Herald of the Faith in the Far East. 1985, ISBN 3-87787-191-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Community Archives of the St. Joseph Freinademetz Community in Beijing
  2. ↑ vatican.va
  3. ↑ EGDS: Homepage Evangelical Congregation German Language in Beijing ( Memento of the original from February 6, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.egpeking.de
  4. ↑ DCGS: Homepage German-speaking Christian community Shanghai