Immaculate Conception Church, Zhangpuqiao

Immaculate Conception Church (张朴桥无原罪始胎圣母堂, Zhāngpǔqiáo Wúyuánzuì Shǐtāi Shèngmǔ Táng) in Zhangpu village (张朴, Zhāngpǔ), Sheshan Town, is small, but its place in Jesuit history is large. A seminary opened here in 1843 and a group of Catholics gathered here to write to the pope four years earlier.

What was the petition of 1839?

In 1839, 98 Catholics of the Nanjing diocese met at the Zhangpuqiao station. Frs Wang Ruowang and Zhang Ximan led them in writing a petition on white silk to Pope Gregory XVI, asking him to send a bishop and missionaries to China, as the Songjiang gazetteer records.

A seminary in a village

In 1842 three Jesuits, Claude Gotteland, François Estève and Benjamin Brueyre, came by warship and visited Zhangpu for services. In February or March 1843 Brueyre founded a seminary there; in May it was named the Seminary of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and took in its first 22 students. In July the college moved to Hengtang, in today’s Sijing.

Closed in 1955, reopened in 1993

Services stopped in September 1955. After 1978 the property was returned to the church, and on 8 December 1993 it reopened with Bishop Jin Luxian celebrating. On 31 July 1994 he confirmed more than 300 people at a Mass of about 700. Songjiang’s records in the 1990s count 24 Sunday Masses a year here, with about 60 people each.

What to look for

The church is in Zhangpu Village. Nothing in the gazetteers describes the building, so confirm on site what stands from the seminary period.