(1630-1662) was the first appointed bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Nanjing. It was erected as the
Apostolic Vicariate of Nanjing in 1659 by
Pope Alexander VII, and promoted to a diocese by
Pope Alexander VIII on April 10, 1690. On 15 October 1696, its territory was reduced by
Pope Innocent XII to two provinces:
Jiangnan (the present day provinces of
Anhui,
Jiangsu, and
Shanghai) and Ho-nan (
Henan province). The diocese was demoted to the
Apostolic Vicariate of Kiangnan on January 21, 1856 by
Pope Pius IX, and its name was later changed to the
Apostolic Vicariate of Kiangsu on August 8, 1921 and to the
Vicariate Apostolic of Nanjing on May 1, 1922.
Pope Pius XII elevated it on April 11, 1946 to the rank of a
metropolitan archdiocese, with the
suffragan sees of
Haimen,
Shanghai,
Suzhou, and
Xuzhou. The archdiocese's
motherchurch and thus seat of its archbishop is the
Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception also known as the Shigu Road church. There were a number of years without a bishop after the death of
Paul Cardinal Yü Pin on August 16, 1978, because of the irregular relations between the
Communist government and the
Holy See. On January 6, 2000,
Francis Savio Lu Xinping was ordained the new bishop of Nanjing along with four others in an illicit ceremony in Beijing's South Cathedral. Since then he has been reconciled to the Holy See. ==List of Ordinaries of Nanjing==