Database of Bibliography of Chinese Christian Documents Established

The ribbon cutting ceremony of the outcome exhibition of the project entitled “Collections and Studies of the Bibliography of Chinese Christian Documents” was held in Shanghai on Jan. 19, 2018.
The ribbon cutting ceremony of the outcome exhibition of the project entitled “Collections and Studies of the Bibliography of Chinese Christian Documents” was held in Shanghai on Jan. 19, 2018.

On January 19, 2018, the results ceremony for the research project titled "Collections and Studies of the Bibliography of Chinese Christian Documents" was held in Shanghai.

Since the approval and initiation in 2012, the project, supported by the National Social Science Fund, has established a database of the bibliography of Chinese Christian documents covering Catholicism before 1840, in the late Qing Dynasty, and the Republic of China, Protestantism in the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, and Eastern Orthodoxy. In addition, the research group received rare documents donated by individuals.

The exhibition focused on "a combination of China and the West" by showing the contributions Chinese Christian intellectuals made to Chinese Christian publications including Catholics like Wu Li, Huang Bolu, Li Wenyu, Ma Xiangbo, and Xu Zongze, and Protestants like Fan Zimei, T. C. Chao, Jia Yuming, and Liu Tingfang. Their works promoted inculturation and contextualization of Chinese Christian theology. 

The first series of the book Collected Rare Christian Books and Documents in Chinese was launched on the same day. It collected 16 kinds of documents concerning theology, ecclesiastical history, and religious literature. Most of the information was published for the first time. The second series is under approval. 

The Latin text of Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica, the book's Chinese translation made by Ludovic Bugli, a Jesuit missionary who preached in China in the early Qing Dynasty, and the translation's copies, and the punctuated texts were put on display.  

- Translated by Karen Luo

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