Manchurian Catholics

In the course of my research on church bells in Beijing, I have been learning a lot about the history of the Catholic churches here. One thing I have learned is that, even though the Jesuits had favor at the imperial court and were often on friendly terms with the emperor and his family, who were Manchu (Manchurians), most of the converts were Han Chinese.

But not all.

In his book, A New History of Christianity in China, Daniel Bays writes about a group of converts from the Manchu people during the Qing Dynasty:

After the handover of power to the new Qing regime, and the Jesuits success in maintaining residence in Beijing, the congregation of believers continues to grow. By 1700 it included a small but increasing number of ethnic Manchus. Several of these were from the Sunu family, (Sunu was a cousin of the Yongzheng emperor, who reigned 1723 –1735). After Yongzheng’s prohibition of Christianity in 1723, he punished the Christians in Sunu’s clan over the next few years and Manchu converts seem to have disappeared, except for perhaps a handful. Despite the hostile atmosphere, a small number of converts, 2000 or so, continued to exist in Beijing through most of the eighteenth century.

On Tuesday, in a Catholic church in Beijing, my research assistant and I met a descendant of this clan.