Qualla: Sacred Heart Cathedral, Kaifeng

Sacred Heart Cathedral, Kaifeng: Introduction

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Windmemories, CC BY-SA 4.0. When Japanese bombers began striking Kaifeng in 1937, the Italian bishop Tacconi had four large flags sewn -- two of Italy, two of Vatican City. Whenever the air-raid sirens sounded, workers scrambled to hoist a flag to the top of the cathedral's bell tower. It was a gamble: Italy was an Axis power, and Japan might respect the neutrality implied by the Vatican banner. The gamble worked. Sacred Heart Cathedral survived the Second Sino-Japanese War, as it would survive the civil war that followed and the Cultural Revolution after that -- the largest Catholic church in Henan province, stubbornly enduring in a city that has been repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt.

Image: Windmemories | CC BY-SA 4.0

Sacred Heart Cathedral, Kaifeng: Jesuits, Jewish Communities, and a Flood

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Windmemories, CC BY-SA 4.0. Catholicism arrived in Kaifeng in the seventeenth century, carried by Jesuits including Giulio Aleni and Nicolas Trigault who came searching for the city's famed Jewish community. In 1629, Francesco Sambiasi established the first Catholic church in Kaifeng. It lasted thirteen yea...

Image: Windmemories | CC BY-SA 4.0

Sacred Heart Cathedral, Kaifeng: A Bell Tower in the Crossfire

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Windmemories, CC BY-SA 4.0. The bell tower became Kaifeng's most strategically coveted vantage point during the Chinese Civil War. In May 1948, during the First Battle of Kaifeng, a communist commander set up headquarters inside the cathedral complex and used the tower to observe and direct combat operation...

Image: Windmemories | CC BY-SA 4.0

Sacred Heart Cathedral, Kaifeng: Shattered Glass, Enduring Walls

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Windmemories, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Cultural Revolution inflicted a different kind of damage. Red Guards shattered the stained glass windows that had once depicted the Sacred Heart of Jesus flanked by Saints Peter and Paul, with the martyrs Francis Ferdinand de Capillas and John Gabriel Perboyre on the outer pa...

Image: Windmemories | CC BY-SA 4.0

Sacred Heart Cathedral, Kaifeng: The Bronze Bell Still Rings

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Greg kf, CC BY-SA 3.0. The bell tower stands independently to the north of the cathedral, topped by a three-meter cement cross. Inside, a bronze bell cast in 1921 hangs at the summit, decorated with patterns of flora and fauna and inscribed in Latin by Tacconi. A pulley system with ropes reaching to th...

Image: Greg kf | CC BY-SA 3.0