Catholics
In the collection of steles in the Provincial Museum in Xi’an is a tablet recording the presence of Nestorian Christianity in China in the seventh century. From the Yuan dynasty there are records of the presence of a Franciscan monk in Peking at the endof the thirteenth century. At the end of the sixteenth century Matteo Ricci(1552-1610) carue to the Ming court, bringing Catholicism and western astron-omy and even converting some of the court. The first church was erected at Xuanwu men in Peking in the mid-seventeenth century; the present church on thesame site was built in 1906.

It was only after the Opium Wars in the 1840s that Christianity made much impression in China, because of the influx of foreign missionaries. It made such an impact that the banner of the Taiping rebellion was raised in the name of Christianity. By 1949 China contained some 3 million Catholics, 700,000 Protest-ants and a small number of Eastern Orthodox Christians. In 1951 the Patriotic Society of Chinese Catholics was formed, which was independent of the Vatican -at the time it was felt that the Vatican was inciting Catholics to oppose the new comer, and in addition the Vatican had in the past recognized the states of Manchuria and Taiwan. Since that time the Catholic Church has elected its own shops and ordained its.own priests. During the Cultural Revolution, the last aging mssionaries were expelled from China, and the church in Xuanwu men wasclosed between 1966 and 1971, when it was reopened for use by the foreign community. Since the late 1970s Chinese Catholics have been able to Practise there faith more openly; a new bishop was elected in Nanking, and the church there and in Shanghai reopened. The Bible has been scheduled for republishing, and Christ-mas and Easter are openly celebrated by many Chinese Christians.

Islamic
The Moslem religion came to China along the Silk Route during the Tang dynasty. Persian and Arab merchants worshipped in their own mosques in Chang’an, and in651 an envoy of the Caliph Othman lbn-affan journeyed to Chang’an andexpounded the principles of Islam to the court; his visit is regarded as the officialintroduction of lslam to China.

There are approximately io million Moslems in China today. The main Islamicnationality is the Hui, who have their own autonomous region in Ningxia. Many ofthe nationalities in Xinjiang, including the Uighurs,are Moslem, as are those livingin Qinghai and Gansu. Nearly every major city has special shops and restaurantsfor Moslems, and there are mosques dating from the anciertt Guang to in Guang-zhou – the oldest mosque in China – to the South Mosque in Shenyang, built in1661. Geographically they are found from Shanghaiin the east to Kashgar in the far west.

The China Islamic Association convened its fourth National Congress in April1980 – the first since 1963 – and there are plans to publish more editions of theKoran. Chinese Moslems are taking part in the World Islamic Movement and haverecently journeyed to the Hajj. The magazine Moslems in Cbina is being reissued;and the China Institute of Islamic has been reopened. Moslems are also representedat the Fifth National People’s Congress and on the Chinese People’s PoliticalConsultative Conference.