Brief information on St. Joseph’s Cathedral (East Church)  

St. Joseph’s Cathedral is one of the city’s best-preserved religious sites and the second oldest Catholic Church in Beijing. It is a reconstruction built in 1904 on the ruins of the burned church.

It was originally the residence that Emperor Shunzhi granted to two foreign priests. The two priests established a small church on an empty plot, which was the precursor of East Church. There houses precious religious images by Johann Adam Schall von Bell. The architecture emphasizes a beautiful blend of ancient western and Chinese architectural styles. After the large-scale repair work, East Church reopened in 1980.

Nowadays, East Church has become a witness to Catholic cultural development in China, and is a place for communication of western and Chinese cultures.

 

 

*You can download the bilingual note to show it to a taxi driver or someone else to find your way to St. Joseph’s Cathedral (East Church) if you plan to visit St. Joseph’s Cathedral (East Church) and have language problems.

   

Chinese Pinyin: Sheng Yue Se Da Jiao Tang
Opening Times: everyday in the morning
Address: No. 74, Wangfujing Avenue, Dongcheng District
How to Get to: take bus No. 103, 102, 104, 803, 814 or 808 and get off at Dong’an Shichang stop.