St. Anne's Church, Moxi
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

St. Anne's Church, commonly referred to as Moxi Catholic Church, is a
Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
church in the Sichuanese Tibetan town of Moxi, southwestern China. The church was built in the late 19th century by
Paris Foreign Missions Society The Society of Foreign Missions of Paris (, , MEP) is a Catholic Missionary order, missionary organization. It is not a religious institute, but an organization of secular clergy, secular priests and Laity, lay persons dedicated to missionary wo ...
, and was renovated and expanded in 1930. Originally housing the
mission Mission (from Latin 'the act of sending out'), Missions or The Mission may refer to: Geography Australia *Mission River (Queensland) Canada *Mission, British Columbia, a district municipality * Mission, Calgary, Alberta, a neighbourhood * ...
of Moxi, it has been controlled by the state-sanctioned
Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association The Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA) is the national organization for Catholicism in the People's Republic of China. It was established in 1957 after a group of Chinese Catholics met in Beijing with officials from the Chinese Commun ...
since 1957.


History


Origin

The small town of Moxi is located on the eastern slope of Mount Konka, on the border between
Sichuan Sichuan is a province in Southwestern China, occupying the Sichuan Basin and Tibetan Plateau—between the Jinsha River to the west, the Daba Mountains to the north, and the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau to the south. Its capital city is Cheng ...
and eastern Tibet. The district of Moxi was part of the Apostolic Vicariate of Lhasa (now Diocese of Kangding) erected on March 27, 1846, with the brief from
Pope Gregory XVI Pope Gregory XVI (; ; born Bartolomeo Alberto Cappellari; 18 September 1765 – 1 June 1846) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 2 February 1831 to his death in June 1846. He had adopted the name Mauro upon enteri ...
. Evangelization was entrusted to the missionaries of
Paris Foreign Missions Society The Society of Foreign Missions of Paris (, , MEP) is a Catholic Missionary order, missionary organization. It is not a religious institute, but an organization of secular clergy, secular priests and Laity, lay persons dedicated to missionary wo ...
. Originally built at the end of the 19th century as a wooden chapel, it was falling apart by 1930. The façade, more exposed to the inclement weather of the seasons, was falling into ruins, the building was no longer sufficient for the needs of worship. According to a 1930 missionary report, "Mr. Ménard oseph-Paul Ménard, 1889–1932 in charge of the district, undertook to expand and restore the chapel. The plank walls have given way to brick walls, and a new façade, in good Chinese style, topped with a bell tower, is admired by the Christian and even pagan population. This new church was solemnly blessed on the
Octave In music, an octave (: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is an interval between two notes, one having twice the frequency of vibration of the other. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referr ...
of
Saint Anne According to apocrypha, as well as Christianity, Christian and Islamic tradition, Saint Anne was the mother of Mary, mother of Jesus, Mary, the wife of Joachim and the maternal grandmother of Jesus. Mary's mother is not named in the Bible's Gosp ...
,
patron saint A patron saint, patroness saint, patron hallow or heavenly protector is a saint who in Catholicism, Anglicanism, Eastern Orthodoxy or Oriental Orthodoxy is regarded as the heavenly advocate of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, fa ...
of the district." Some
Franciscan missionaries of Mary The Franciscan Missionaries of Mary are a Roman Catholic centralized religious institute of consecrated life of Pontifical Right for women founded by Mother Mary of the Passion (born Hélène Marie Philippine de Chappotin de Neuville, 1839–190 ...
helped in building various
pavilion In architecture, ''pavilion'' has several meanings; * It may be a subsidiary building that is either positioned separately or as an attachment to a main building. Often it is associated with pleasure. In palaces and traditional mansions of Asia ...
s and an atrium of Spanish style topped by angel statues. The construction and beautification of the church, filled with statues and symbolism, took almost five years to complete.


Beheaded missionaries

The same year (1930), a Spanish
Franciscan The Franciscans are a group of related organizations in the Catholic Church, founded or inspired by the Italian saint Francis of Assisi. They include three independent Religious institute, religious orders for men (the Order of Friars Minor bei ...
from
Pego, Alicante Pego (Valencian and Spanish: ) is a municipality located in the province of Alicante, Spain. Lying just inland from the northern Costa Blanca resort of Dénia, the town of Pego sits in a depression, surrounded by mountains. A part of the Marina ...
, , joined the Mission of Moxi working as a stonemason and sculptor. With the support of the Apostolic Vicar of Tatsienlu and his coadjutor , Oltra subsequently became one of the founders of the
leper colony A leper colony, also known by many other names, is an isolated community for the quarantining and treatment of lepers, people suffering from leprosy. '' M. leprae'', the bacterium responsible for leprosy, is believed to have spread from East ...
that would be organized around the church, together with Plácido Albiero, the Father Superior; Bernabé Lafond, a Canadian friar; and José Andreatta, an Italian missionary. As a sculptor, his last work for the parish of Moxi was a '' Madonna of Consolation'', before being taken prisoner by communist troops. In May 1935, a communist army column led by
Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; traditionally Romanization of Chinese, romanised as Mao Tse-tung. (26December 18939September 1976) was a Chinese politician, revolutionary, and political theorist who founded the People's Republic of China (PRC) in ...
was fleeing Chiang Kai-shek's nationalist army to northwestern China through the Moxi area, part of a military retreat later known as the
Long March The Long March ( zh, s=长征, p=Chángzhēng, l=Long Expedition) was a military retreat by the Chinese Red Army and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from advancing Kuomintang forces during the Chinese Civil War, occurring between October 1934 and ...
. Mao settled for a few days in the Franciscan residence next to the church, where the communists held the "Moxi conference". The residence is now designated a museum of the revolution and the Long March. Mao wanted to meet all the missionaries who had been stationed there, including two who were not far away tending the leper colony — Oltra and an Italian Franciscan friar, Epifanio Pegoraro from
Montecchio Maggiore Montecchio Maggiore () is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Vicenza, Veneto, Italy. It is situated approximately west of Vicenza and east of Verona; SP 246 provincial road passes through it. Montecchio Maggiore borders the following muni ...
. The
Valencia Valencia ( , ), formally València (), is the capital of the Province of Valencia, province and Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Valencian Community, the same name in Spain. It is located on the banks of the Turia (r ...
n Franciscan friar José Miguel Barrachina Lapiedra stated in his book , that the communist soldiers looted the residence and arrested the friars and sisters after entering the leper colony. Many of the lepers tried to defend the missionaries, but they were shot by the soldiers. The Franciscans were then brought before Mao, who interrogated them, imprisoned two of them — Pascual Nadal Oltra and Epifanio Pegoraro — and released the rest. ''Malaya Catholic Leader'', the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Singapore, reported the number of soldiers in the red army was more than 30,000, "including a large number of women." Before their departure, the soldiers ransacked the village in the Moxi valley, every article deemed worth carrying away had been taken. The people of the district were left without means of subsistence. Days later, on December 4, 1935, the army reached ,
Tsanlha Xiaojin County ( zh, s=小金县), also known as Tsanlha from its Tibetan name (), is a county in the northwest of Sichuan Province, China. It is the southernmost county-level division of the Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture. Histor ...
, where the two Franciscans were beheaded with a sword before the astounded gaze of several neighbors, who witnessed the execution from their homes. One of the witnesses buried the bodies. Despite the ransacking and executions, the church recovered and continued tending to the sick; in 1937 they tended to 148 people. In 2006, an investigation was carried out into the martyrdom of Pascual Nadal y Oltra. According to the Valencian Franciscan historian Benjamín Agulló Pascual, during the investigation in China, they encountered great difficulties in accessing new oral and written testimonies, due to the opposition of the country's authorities. He added that although many years have passed, Pascual Nadal continues to enjoy a reputation for holiness in the area where he worked.


After 1949

Following the fall of
mainland China "Mainland China", also referred to as "the Chinese mainland", is a Geopolitics, geopolitical term defined as the territory under direct administration of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the aftermath of the Chinese Civil War. In addit ...
to communism in late 1949, the local Catholic community struggled through the revolutionary turmoil. In the 1950s, the communist authorities confiscated St. Anne's church properties, namely, a small seminary (also functioning as a Latin school) and a boys' school. The former was razed to the ground and later occupied by a private company. The latter was occupied by Moxi regional government officials. On September 3, 2011, an attack took place against a nun and a priest after the parish of Moxi demanded the return of the two confiscated properties. Sister Xie Yuming was severely beaten by a group of unknown assailants and had to be hospitalized, while Father Huang Yusong suffered minor injuries. After the attack, many parishioners gathered to protest in front of St. Anne's Church and expressed their disapproval of the methods used by those who sponsored the assailants. The
2022 Luding earthquake A 6.7 ( 6.8) earthquake struck Luding County in Sichuan provinces of China, province, China on 5 September 2022 at 12:52:19 Time in China, local time. The epicenter was located from Chengdu, or southeast of Kangding. Ninety-three people died, ...
caused great damage to the church and the former Franciscan residence where the late dictator Mao lived in 1935, which is now designated a museum of the revolution and the Long March with a statue of Mao in front of the residence building. Damage to the buildings included deformed columns, cracks in walls, roof collapse and general structural damage. Parish priest Huang Yusong reported that repairing the buildings was expected to be very difficult. After consultation with some architects, he was told that a reconstruction plan could not be ruled out.


Architecture

The church's design is influenced by local traditions and
Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic or neo-Gothic) is an Architectural style, architectural movement that after a gradual build-up beginning in the second half of the 17th century became a widespread movement in the first half ...
style. The
bell tower A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell to ...
is topped with a local style dome, but decorated with Gothic biforas and
trefoil A trefoil () is a graphic form composed of the outline of three overlapping rings, used in architecture, Pagan and Christian symbolism, among other areas. The term is also applied to other symbols with a threefold shape. A similar shape with f ...
s. The interior columns have
capitals Capital and its variations may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** Capital region, a metropolitan region containing the capital ** List of national capitals * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Econom ...
decorated with carved wooden leaves. The church owns and maintains a
clergy house A clergy house is the residence, or former residence, of one or more priests or ministers of a given religion, serving as both a home and a base for the occupant's ministry. Residences of this type can have a variety of names, such as manse, p ...
and dormitories for male and female students attending catechism classes.


Gallery

File:St. Anne's Church, Mosimien.png, Front view File:St. Anne's Church, Boxab.png, Side view File:St. Anne's Church, Mosimien (interior) 1.jpg, Interior File:St. Anne's Church, Mosimien (interior) 3.jpg,
Chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the Choir (architecture), choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may termi ...
File:St. Anne's Church, Mosimien (interior) 2.jpg, Chancel


See also

*
Spanish Redemptorist missions in Sichuan The Spanish Redemptorist missions in Sichuan were Catholic missions carried out by Spaniards, Spanish Missionary, missionaries of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (Redemptorists) between 1934 and 1952 in Sichuan (formerly romanised as ''S ...
*
Yangliujie Catholic Church Yangliujie Catholic Church is a former Catholic church in Zunyi, Guizhou, China. It was completed in 1897 after several anti-Christian riots in Zunyi in the 19th century. On the course of the Long March, the Chinese Red Army used the church to h ...
– in Sichuan's culturally close neighboring province, also occupied by communists in 1935


Notes


References


Citations


Sources

* * * * * * {{Christianity in Sichuan 19th-century Roman Catholic church buildings Moxi Moxi Moxi Rebuilt churches Moxi Roman Catholic churches completed in the 1930s Moxi Moxi