St. Michael's Cathedral (; ), also called the Zhejiang Road Catholic Church (), is a Catholic church in Qingdao (Tsingtao), Shandong Province, China, and is the seat of the bishop of the Diocese of Qingdao (Tsingtao). It is located in the oldest part of Qingdao, at 15 Zhejiang Road (formerly Bremen Straße), on the east side of Zhongshan Road (formerly Friedrich Straße) in Shinan District. Built by German missionaries, the cathedral stands at the top of a hill in the center of the old German-built part of the city. It is the largest example of Romanesque Revival architecture in the province, resembling a German cathedral of the 12th century.
St. Michael's Cathedral is the product of a strong German presence in Shandong Province in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In the mid-19th century the European powers forcibly opened China to foreign trade. The Divine Word Missionaries built a church in the Jiaozhou Bay concession in Shandong in 1902, and in 1934 erected the cathedral, which remained nominally under their administration until 1964. In 1942 it came under the control of the Japanese Army, returning to Chinese control when the Japanese left Qingdao in 1945. In the early 1950s, all foreign missionaries, including the Bishop of Qingdao, were either imprisoned or expelled from China, and during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) the cathedral was defaced and abandoned. In 1981, it was repaired by the government and reopened for services, and in 1992 it was listed as a Provincial Historic Building by the government of Shandong Province.
History After China's defeat in the First Opium War, the country was forced to open to foreign trade by a number of treaties collectively referred to as the Unequal Treaties. Following the Treaty of Nanjing (1842), the British established the first treaty ports. Following China's concession to the British Empire, Russia won concessions as well. Foreigners, who were centered in foreign sections of the cities, enjoyed legal extraterritoriality as stipulated in the Unequal Treaties. Foreign clubs, racecourses, and churches were established in major treaty ports. Some of these port areas were directly leased by foreign powers, such as the concessions in China, effectively removing them from the control of local governments.
German presence in Qingdao
In the early 1890s, the German Empire had been considering occupying Jiaozhou Bay ("Jiaozhou" is romanized as Kiaochow, Kiauchau or Kiao-Chau in English and Kiautschou in German) for building its first naval base in East Asia in order to expand into the interior of Shandong. In 1891 the Qing government decided to make Qingdao (commonly spelled "Tsingtao") defensible against naval attack and began to improve the existing fortifications of the town. German naval officials observed and reported on this Chinese activity during a formal survey of Jiaozhou Bay in May 1897. In November 1897, the German Navy seized Jiaozhou Bay under the pretext of ensuring that reparations were paid for the murder of two German Catholic missionaries in the province. In the spring of 1898, the German government signed a treaty that allowed the Germans to lease an area of for 99 years (or until 1997, as the British did in Hong Kong's New Territories and the French did in Kouang-Tchéou-Wan), to construct a railway to Jinan, the capital of Shandong province, and to exploit coalfields along the railroad.
The Kiautschou Bay concession, as it became known, existed from 1898 to 1914. With an area of , it was located in the imperial province of Shandong (alternatively romanized as Shantung or Shan-tung in English and Schantung in German) on the southern coast of the Shandong Peninsula (Schantung-Halbinsel) in northern China. Tsingtao (Qingdao) was its administrative center. After the farmers and fishermen of the Chinese village sold their buildings and land and resettled in the rural communities further east, the Germans began to develop the area. Wide streets, solid housing areas, government buildings, electrification throughout, a sewer system and a safe drinking water supply were improvements that transformed the impoverished fishing village of Tsingtao into a modern German town. In a short time the area had the highest density of schools and per capita student enrollment in all of China; primary, secondary and vocational schools were funded by the Imperial German treasury and Protestant and Roman Catholic missions.
The cathedral was built by the Divine Word Missionaries (abbreviated "SVD," from their Latin name: Societas Verbi Divini), the first German Catholic missionary society. The order was founded in 1875 "for the propagation of the Catholic religion among pagan nations," at Steyl (today in the Limburg Province of the Netherlands), by German Catholic priests fleeing the Kulturkampf. The society's first mission was established in 1882 in southern Shantung, a district of more than 10 million people, which contained 158 Catholics. At the time, the area was part of the Apostolic Vicariate of Shantung, managed by Italian Franciscans, who were tasked with rebuilding the earlier Catholic mission work. However, the mission work proceeded slowly, due to insufficient personnel and resources. The southern half of the province, in particular, had been all but neglected. Consequently, it was transferred to the SVD on December 2, 1885, and became the Vicariate Apostolic of Southern Shan-tung. The new vicariate apostolic was headquartered in Yanzhou, Shandong, and headed by Bishop Johann Baptist von Anzer, SVD, who led it until November 24, 1903. By 1907, the mission numbered 35,378 Catholics and 36,367 catechumens, and by 1924, 106,000 Catholics and 44,000 catechumens. The SVD's presence in Qingdao was first recorded when the mission purchased land there in 1899 and began building a mission hall.
Design and construction
In autumn 1898 Bishop von Anzer had Father Franz BartelsFather Franz Bartels's Chinese name was Bai Mingde, as per: Several sources mention him by his Chinese name only. appointed as pastor in Qingdao. Bishop von Anzer also commissioned Bartels with planning and constructing the Catholic mission. Bartels initially stayed in a house that was part of a Taoist temple. Adjacent to his house he had a provisional chapel built which served as a place of worship/service for the European inhabitants of Qingdao until 1902 when a mission hall with a chapel was built. Major Kopka von Lossow, commander of the Third Sea Battalion which was stationed in Qingdao, ordered about a hundred of his men to attend services every Sunday.
On a hill chosen by Bishop von Anzer, Father Bartels purchased some land on Qufu Road, having a printing house and the SVD mission hall erected in 1902. The mission hall was converted to a schoolDexian Primary School, on Dexian road. in 1922, and was operating as of May 2010.
The Holy Ghost Convent was also built on the same hill, occupied by Franciscan sisters who worked as nurses and teachers.
The cathedral's original architect (commissioned by Bishop Augustin Henninghaus) designed a three-aisled Gothic church, but the World War I conquest of Qingdao by the Japanese on November 16, 1914, put an end to the cathedral plans. The city reverted to Chinese rule in December 1922, under control of the Republic of China. The Vicariate Apostolic of Southern Shan-tung was renamed the Vicariate Apostolic of Yanzhoufu on December 13, 1924, and on February 22, 1925, the Apostolic Prefecture of Qingdao was established from its territory, with Bishop Georg Weig, SVD, appointed prefect on March 18 of that same year. On June 14, 1928, it was elevated to a vicariate apostolic. When construction resumed, the original Gothic plan no longer seemed appropriate for the modern townscape of Qingdao. Father Alfred Fräbel designed the present neo-Romanesque structure, built during the tenure of Bishop Weig, who is entombed in the cathedral.
Construction began on May 5, 1931, under Brother Theophorus Kleemann, SVD, who became ill and died on September 12, 1931; Arthur Bialucha, a German architect living in Qingdao who had already completed several projects for the SVD, took over as construction superintendent. Construction was frustrated in 1933, when Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany and prohibited the transfer of money overseas. The diocese independently shouldered the cost of finishing the cathedral. This required a number of design changes to reduce costs. The changes are evident in drawings published before completion of construction, which show the roofs of the towers as bell-shaped. However, the roofs of the completed structure were changed to spires. Construction was finished in 1934, and the cathedral was consecrated on October 28 that year.
Some sources state that St. Michael's Cathedral was originally named "St. Emil's Church".For example, chinaculture.org and travel websites (e.g. AsiaHotels ) A Latin inscription over the tomb of Bishop Weig states that the cathedral was consecrated to St. Michael the Archangel in 1934. In addition, a photo taken in 1935, currently in the German Federal ArchivesThe photo is designated as Bundesarchiv Bild (Federal Archive Image) 137-041054, and is available online at Wikimedia Commons is labeled "St. Michaels Kirche" (St. Michael's Church), and authoritative secondary print sources make no mention of "St. Emil's Church".
1938–1949: occupation, liberation, and civil war The Japanese reoccupied Qingdao in January 1938. Bishop Thomas Tien Ken-sin, SVD, was appointed Vicariate Apostolic of Qingdao, in November 1942, as Bishop Georg Weig had died the year before. That year, the Japanese placed a large sign over the main door of the cathedral that read "Under Management of the Japanese Army". On August 15, 1945, Japan surrendered to Allied forces, officially ending World War II, and in September 1945, Qingdao was liberated by forces of the Kuomintang, restoring the government of the Republic of China. The following year, on February 18, 1946, Bishop Tien was elevated to cardinal, becoming the first Chinese cardinal and to date the only SVD cardinal. He traveled to Vatican City to accept the honor. His vicariate apostolic was elevated to the Diocese of Qingdao on April 11. Upon his return on May 27, he was greeted by representatives of the government of Shandong Province, who had arranged a welcome in his honor, with the United States Marine Band playing outside the main entrance of the cathedral. The Marine Band was attached to Naval Forces Western Pacific, headquartered in Qingdao at the time. During the Civil War period (1946–1949), missionaries in Shandong Province experienced growing tensions with the Communists, spurring one of them, Father Augustin Olbert, SVD, to write:
Father Olbert was appointed Bishop of Qingdao two years later.
On June 2, 1949, the People's Liberation Army entered Qingdao and both the city and Shandong Province have since been under Communist control. Bishop Tien fled to Taiwan with the Kuomintang government.
1949–1976: Under Mao