Shichun Hall

Shichun Hall

Shichun Hall is a Shanghai Municipal Cultural Relics Protection Unit.

Shichun Hall is located at Wutong Road Primary School, south of Yuyuan Garden in Nanshi. It is the oldest church in Shanghai, built in the 13th year of the Chongzhen reign during the Ming Dynasty (1640). Shortly after the Italian Jesuit missionary François Pallu arrived in Shanghai to preach, with the help of Xu Guangqi’s granddaughter Candida Xu, he purchased Shichun Hall, originally built by Pan Yunwan in Anren Li, north of the city. After renovation, it was renamed “Jingting Tang” (Hall of the Lord of Heaven). The church was dedicated to “Jesus the Savior.” It was a Chinese-style cathedral, standing 4 zhang 6 chi tall, 4 zhang 8 chi wide, and 3 zhang 6 chi deep, with a capacity of 300 people. Next to the church was the residence of the priest, where François Pallu set up an observatory to study astronomy.

For nearly a century after its completion, the Old Catholic Church served as the center of Catholicism in Shanghai, with priests stationed there permanently. After the Qing Emperor Yongzheng banned the practice of Catholicism, Jingting Tang was confiscated in the ninth year of Yongzheng’s reign (1731) and converted into the Guan Di Temple. The adjacent buildings were repurposed in the 13th year of Qianlong’s reign (1748) as Shenjiang Academy (later known as Jingye Academy). After the Opium War, in the 25th year of Daoguang’s reign (1845), when the Catholic ban was lifted, French missionaries demanded the return of properties including Jingting Tang from the Shanghai Daotai. Since Jingting Tang had already been converted into a Guan Di Temple, the Qing government had no choice but to compensate with three plots of land—near Dongjiadu and Yangjingbang, each approximately 1 hectare in size. In the 11th year of Xianfeng’s reign (1861), the French invading army commander General Charles Cousin-Montauban, ignoring that Jingting Tang’s property had already been used as compensation, once again demanded the Guan Di Temple and Jingye Academy from the Shanghai Daotai. By this time, Shanghai already had newly built Catholic churches, so the returned hall came to be called the Old Catholic Church.

In the 30th year of the Republic of China (1940), the 300th anniversary of the church’s founding was celebrated under the leadership of Father Fan Jiayi. After the liberation of Shanghai, the Old Catholic Church continued normal religious activities. These activities ceased in the late 1950s. In the early 1960s, the site was used by Wutong Street Primary School. In May 1959, the former Jingting Tang was designated as a Shanghai Municipal Cultural Relics Protection Unit by the municipal government, but this designation was revoked in 1966. On May 18, 1981, the building of the former Jingting Tang was declared a district-level cultural relics protection unit by the Nanshi District People's Government.

On April 4, 2014, the Shanghai Municipal People's Government officially designated and announced Shichun Hall as a Shanghai Municipal Cultural Relics Protection Unit (Hu Fu Fa [2014] No. 29).