Lina in China

I did not expect to find catholic churches in Beijing. But on the first evening already my friend called and said: I am waiting in front of the church, could you come. Church?!? In Beijing? I was surprised. I asked my friend of course to come and get me from the hotel. Later she showed me the church. It did look old. After consulting my Beijing Tourism Guide (produced by the Chinese for Olympic visitors in English) I found out it was the Church of St. Joseph, a catholic church. The land of the church was given by the Emperor Shunzhi of the Qing Dynasty 1655 to two foreign priests. The church was destroyed several times by earthquakes. The current building is from 1904. So actually it seems like churches do have an old history in Beijing.

Having found out about this church of course I got curious about the service. Still the Jet Lag lets me wake up quite early. My original plan for this Sunday morning was to go to Tiananmen Square and see the raise of the Chinese flag at about 4:30 am. But when I wanted to leave the hotel there was a bad thunderstorm and rain going on. So I decided not to go to Tiananmen Square this morning.

Since I did not know at what time the St. Joseph in Beijing has its morning mess I just went there on good luck at 6:30. The service was already in the middle. Because it was still raining so hard I had a very wet jacket. Many church visitors were staring at me and I felt very bad for disturbing. So I just sneaked quietly on a bench. On the inside the church is also very beautiful.

The service of St. Joseph in Beijing felt very much like any catholic service I have seen in Germany with my grandmother. Just some of the singing sounded more Chinese somehow.

It was amazing how even the oldest women would kneel during the prayers. And stupid long-nosed me was not even able to do it for one minute. My knees hurt like hell and I could not keep still. So I decided to skip the kneeling.

Other then in German catholic churches I have seen the doors were open, people kept coming and going and the end was not defined. Some people got up and left, some were still praying.

Even though the priests were male of course much of the service a woman was speaking. I don’t know about her role but I found this interesting.

Church of St. Joseph
74 Wanfujing Dajie
Dongcheng Disrtict
Beijing
+86 10 65240634
Beijing Subway Line 1, Wanfujing, walk north 1km
Catholic morning mess: Sunday 6 am