Saint Ignatius Cathedral
The St. Ignatius Cathedral (:圣依纳爵主教座堂Pinyin: Sheng Yīnàjué Zhǔjiào Zuotang, and St. Ignatius Cathedral徐家汇天主教堂;; Pinyin: Xujiahui Tiānzhǔjiào tang) is a neo-Gothic Catholic cathedral in Shanghai .
history
The cathedral was designed by Scottish architect William Macdonnell Mitchell Dowdall during the colonial period in 1904 and built by French Jesuits with the help of the Shanghai Building Company within six years. The Jesuit father François-Xavier Diniz and brother Aloysius Beck from Triftlfing in Bavaria , also members of the French Jesuits, played a leading role in the construction management . The church was built with bricks, the pillars with granite. In 1910, the external length was 79 meters. The width of the transept was 44 meters, the tower height 31 meters. The church was consecrated on October 22nd and 23rd, 1910. After the Communists came to power in China, the cathedral of the Shanghai bishop was moved from the older St. Francis Xavier Church in Dondjiadu to St. Ignatius Cathedral in 1960.
During the Cultural Revolution , the church building was destroyed by the Red Guards from Beijing . The spiers and the ceiling were torn down and the approximately 300 square meters of stained glass smashed. Church priests and nuns were also physically attacked and beaten. The then Bishop Aloysius Jin Luxian was removed from his post and forced labor in a labor camp sent. For the next ten years the cathedral served as a state-owned grain store.
It was not until 1978 that the cathedral could be reopened.
capacity
The Saint Ignatius Cathedral can seat around 3,000 people and, as the diocese of the Diocese of Shanghai, is the largest church in Shanghai and one of the largest in Asia. It is very well attended, and tickets even have to be distributed in advance at Christmas time, otherwise you would not be able to cope with the crowds.
Picture gallery
Exterior view
Surroundings
Nave
Church window
St. Ignatius
Bishop Aloysius
Web links
- Jesus in China. In: LA Times . Retrieved February 9, 2017 .
- Inauguration de l'Église St-Ignace A Zi-Ka-Wei . (French, bnf.fr [accessed February 9, 2019]).
Coordinates: 31 ° 11 ′ 35 " N , 121 ° 25 ′ 53" E