Dongjiadu Cathedral 董家渡圣方济各沙勿略堂

About Dongjiadu Cathedral

The church was completed in 1853 with a Baroque design recalling the church of Sant’Ignazio in Rome.

It served as the seat of Shanghai’s bishop before that role moved to Xujiahui. The surrounding district and the building have undergone major redevelopment and restoration. An exterior architectural visit is therefore a clearer starting plan than assuming regular tourist entry based on old guidebooks; verify current church access directly.

The church was built as compensation for an earlier church inside Shanghai's old city walls, the first Catholic church in China, which had been confiscated in 1731; the 1844 Sino-French Huangpu Treaty (黄埔条约) had reopened the way for Catholic missionary work and church building in China's treaty ports. Bishop Luo Boji (罗伯济), an Italian missionary, laid the cornerstone of the new church at Dongjiadu, near the Huangpu River outside Xiaonanmen, on 21 November 1847, and it opened on Palm Sunday, 4 April 1853.

The church was designed by the Spanish priest Fan Tingzuo (范廷佐). Its facade bears statues of Saints Peter and Paul, while the interior has pillars ten meters in circumference decorated with Chinese-style lotus and crane motifs; the forecourt holds a pavilion dedicated to the Three Saints (三圣亭).

Many of Shanghai's earliest Catholic congregants lived near the church, and Catholic entrepreneurs Lu Bohong (陆伯鸿) and Zhu Zhiyao (朱志尧) founded the Shanghai Catholic Action Society (上海公教进行会) there. Closed in 1966 and used as a factory warehouse during the Cultural Revolution, the church had parts returned in 1982, most of its hall restored by 1984, and the whole building returned and restored by 2000; since 2017 it has been closed again for renovation linked to a nearby office development.

What to look for

• The Baroque design connects the building with nineteenth-century Jesuit church architecture.
• Its location outside the former city wall explains the early Catholic settlement pattern.

Location & getting there

Getting to Dongjiadu Cathedral

Approach the church on Dongjiadu Road near the riverfront. Xiaonanmen station is a named rail reference in the travel listing; confirm the final pedestrian route around local redevelopment.