Donglü (), also written as Donglu, is a village in

Donglü Township Donglü (), also written as Donglu, is a village in Donglü Township (), in Qingyuan County, Hebei, Qingyuan County, Baoding, Hebei province of China, province, China. It has become known for the Marian apparition, apparition of Blessed Virgin M ...

(), in Qingyuan County,

Baoding Baoding (), formerly known as Baozhou and Qingyuan, is a prefecture-level city in central Hebei province, approximately southwest of Beijing. As of the 2010 census, Baoding City had 11,194,382 inhabitants out of which 2,176,857 lived in the b ...

Hebei Hebei or , (; alternately Hopeh) is a northern province of China. Hebei is China's sixth most populous province, with over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. The province is 96% Han Chinese, 3% Manchu, 0.8% Hui, an ...

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. It has become known for the apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary, known as

Our Lady of China Our Lady of China, the Great Mother ( zh, t=中華大聖母, s=中华大圣母, first=t, p=Zhōnghuá Da Shèngmǔ), also known as Our Lady of Donglü ( zh, t=東閭聖母, s=东闾圣母, first=t, p=Dōnglǘ Shèngmǔ, links=no), is a Catholic t ...

, witnessed there in 1900, and the

Marian shrine A shrine to the Virgin Mary (or Marian shrine) is a shrine marking an Marian apparitions, apparition or other miracle ascribed to the Blessed Virgin Mary, or a site on which is centered a historically strong Blessed Virgin Mary, Marian devotion ...

and

pilgrimage A pilgrimage is a journey, often into an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning about their self, others, nature, or a higher good, through the experience. It can lead to a personal transformation, aft ...

site which have since developed.

Geography

Donglü is located about 140 kilometres south-west of the Chinese capital

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

and about 20 kilometers to the southeast of

, to which Qingyuan County administratively belongs.

Religion

In 2004 it was reported that as many as 7000 of Donglü's approximately 9000 residents are Catholic, giving the town probably a larger concentration of Catholics than any other place in China. The city is part of the

Roman Catholic Diocese of Baoding }, ) is a diocese located in the city of Baoding in the Ecclesiastical province of Beijing in China. History * February 14, 1910: Established as the Apostolic Vicariate of Central Chi-Li 直隸中境 from Apostolic Vicariate of Northern Chi-Li � ...

. Donglü is home to a

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

-style

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * Chris ...

originally constructed in the late 1880s and rebuilt in 1992 after being reduced to ruins in 1941 during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

when it caught fire due to Japanese artillery bombardment. The structure is said to be large enough to hold several thousand people; local officials reportedly maintain that the church building is the largest in

north China North China, or Huabei () is a List of regions of China, geographical region of China, consisting of the provinces of Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi and Inner Mongolia. Part of the larger region of Northern China (''Beifang''), it lies north ...

Our Lady of China

Donglü was the site of a

Marian apparition A Marian apparition is a reported supernatural appearance by Mary, the mother of Jesus, or a series of related such appearances during a period of time. In the Catholic Church, in order for a reported appearance to be classified as a Marian ap ...

in 1900 during the

Boxer Rebellion The Boxer Rebellion, also known as the Boxer Uprising, the Boxer Insurrection, or the Yihetuan Movement, was an anti-foreign, anti-colonial, and anti-Christian uprising in China between 1899 and 1901, towards the end of the Qing dynasty, by ...

. This apparition became known in Catholic devotion as

or Our Lady of Donglü. In the Catholic Church, Donglü was consecrated as the shrine for Our Lady of China in 1932 by Pope

Pius XI Pope Pius XI ( it, Pio XI), born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti (; 31 May 1857 – 10 February 1939), was head of the Catholic Church from 6 February 1922 to his death in February 1939. He was the first sovereign of Vatican City from ...

. On May 23, 1995 an apparition of Mary took place, reportedly witnessed by over 30,000 pilgrims, and certified by the bishop of

. Witnesses spoke of the sun spinning from left-to-right in the sky and giving off various colors. The phenomenon lasted approximately twenty minutes.

Recent events

Since the 1990s, multiple sources have reported that there have been several years in which pilgrimages to Donglü have been declared illegal by the government.

Public security forces The Public Security Forces (PSF), formerly known as the Bahrain State Police, are the principal Bahraini law enforcement arm of the Ministry of Interior. They are commanded by Maj. Gen. Tarek Al Hasan and include all Ministry of Interior field u ...

have been employed to attempt to prevent pilgrims from reaching the village or the shrine or to force those present to leave. In various incidents, multiple individuals have been arrested.https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2014/03/25/chinas-modern-martyrs-from-mao-to-now-part-3/ Catholic World Report: China’s Modern Martyrs: From Mao to Now (Part 3), retrieved January 30th 2022http://cardinalkungfoundation.org/pr/pr1996-06-17.php Cardinal Kung foundation: Press Release - June 17, 1996, retrieved January 30th 2022https://www.hawaiicatholicherald.com/2019/05/29/our-lady-of-dong-lu/ Hawaii Catholic Herald. Our Lady of Dong Lu, retrieved January 30th 2022 Various leaders of the

diocese in which Donglü falls have also been arrested and/or incarcerated. In April and May 1996, up to 5,000 troops were mobilized along with about 30 armored cars as well as helicopters in order to isolate the village. The statue of Mary at the shrine was reportedly confiscated.

References

External links