Imagine stepping back in time to 1640. You’re standing before the Zhongjing Catholic Church. This wasn’t always a church. It started as a private residence called Ever-Spring Hall.
Pan Yunduan built it for his father Pan En in 1553. Pan Yunduan also created the Yu Garden nearby. Both were part of the Pan family estate. Later, the Fan family acquired the hall due to the Pan family’s decline.
In 1640 Martina Pan bought the building. She was the granddaughter of Xu Guangqi a key Shanghai Catholic convert. She gave it to Fr. Francesco Brancati an Italian Jesuit missionary. The building became a church and its name changed to Zhongjing Catholic Church. It meant “Hall of the Only Respected”. Some people called it The Church of the Savior in English. Back then men and women couldn’t attend mass together in the same space. Women went to the Church of Our Lady near Xujiazui. The Zhongjing Catholic Church added a side hall for astronomical observations. It became a center for Catholicism in Shanghai.
In 1665 Christianity faced attacks from Yang Guangxian and was banned. Fr. Brancati left for Guangzhou after 28 years in Shanghai. The building became an office for Dong Caogao an official of the Coastal Defense. Jesuits returned in 1671 when the ban was lifted.
Emperor Yongzheng banned Catholicism again in 1724. In 1731 the government confiscated the church. It became a Taoist temple for the god of war Guan Yu. A Shenjiang Academy was built nearby in 1748.
Christianity was legalized again after the Opium War in 1844. An imperial order said old confiscated church lands should be returned. However, properties converted to temples were excluded. The Zhongjing Catholic Church was returned in 1860 after demands from the Treaty of Tianjin. The war god temple moved to the No. 3 Primary School on East Fuxing Road. The Shenjiang academy moved east. Its old buildings became a Catholic school named St. Berchmans school.
A Shangzhi primary school was founded on the site in the 1930s. The Zhongjing Catholic Church had about 600 parishioners then. Religious activities stopped in 1950 after the Chinese Communist Revolution. The church school became Wutong Road Primary School in 1953. The main church hall was used as a gym.
In 1959 the Zhongjing Catholic Church building became a Cultural Heritage site in Shanghai. This status was removed in 1966 during the Cultural Revolution. It was restored on May 18 1981. It served as the primary school gymnasium until the late 1990s. Today it stands unused.
The Zhongjing Catholic Church has witnessed Shanghai’s shifting tides. It went from a private hall to a church. Then it was a temple and a school. Today it stands as a silent reminder of Shanghai’s religious history.