Catholic Church of Lhasa

The Catholic Church of Lhasa[1] Also called the Lhasa Chapel, was the first Catholic church in Tibet in China. It was founded in 1725 and disappeared in 1745.

Catholic Church of Lhasa
Lhasa bell in Pennabilli, Italy, redesign of the original bell of the Catholic mission in Lhasa
LocationLhasa,  Tibet
Country China
DenominationRoman Catholic Church

Italian Capuchin priests Francesco della Penna and Domenico da Fano arrived in Lhasa in 1719 with some Capuchin friars. This was followed by a contest of competition with the Jesuit missionary Ippolito Desideri, the Holy See decided in 1721 in favor of the Capuchins who had already obtained the authorization of the Tibetan authorities to build a chapel.

Kelzang Gyatso, the seventh Dalai Lama, authorized the construction of the church on the heights of the city.[2]

The superior of the mission, Francesco della Penna, returned to Rome in 1737, when Pope Benedict XIV gave a letter to the seventh Dalai Lama, and he took the road to Tibet.

The mission had up to 26 converts.

A photo dating from 1956 is in a book by Josef Vaniš (cs) and Vladimír SIS. There is a bell with a large crack on its side, as an "L" in reverse, which according to the Jokhang monks would be due to the violence of the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution in Tibet.

See also

References
  1. Roland Barraux, Histoire des Dalaï-Lamas - Quatorze reflets sur le Lac des Visions, Albin Michel, 1993; réédité en 2002, Albin Michel (ISBN 2-226-13317-8), p. 68-69, p. 191-192
  2. Gilles van Grasdorff, À la découverte de l’Asie avec les Missions étrangères, Omnibus, juin 2008 (ISBN 978-2-258-07693-8), p. 666

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