Sacred Heart Cathedral Church - Guangzhou
Channel: Happydayinmylife
Date: 2020-11-30

Sacred Heart Cathedral Church - Guangzhou
Location : Yide Road, Yuexiu District, Guangzhou, Tiongkok

This a beauty and antique decoration. Europe style at China - Guangzhou

The Sacred Heart Cathedral, properly the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and also known as the Stone House by locals,[2] is a Gothic Revival Roman Catholic cathedral in Guangzhou, China. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Guangzhou. The cathedral is located at 56 Yide Road (in Chinese: 一德路56号), on the north bank of the Pearl River at the heart of the old town. It is one of the few cathedrals in the world to be entirely built of granite, including all the walls, pillars, and the twin towers.
The site of the cathedral was originally the residence of the Viceroy of Guangdong and Guangxi Provinces in the Qing dynasty. During the Second Opium War, the residence was completely destroyed and Viceroy Ye Mingchen was captured by the British.

Based on the terms of an imperial edict issued by the Daoguang Emperor in February 1846, which promised compensation for churches destroyed and properties taken from the mission, the Société des Missions Étrangères de Paris obtained the site by signing an agreement with the Qing government on January 25, 1861. In his decree of approval, the Xianfeng Emperor wrote "from now on, war should be stopped and peace be sincerely kept forever".

The cathedral, like most of the great Gothic cathedrals of Europe, is built of solid masonry. It is one of the few churches in the world to be entirely built of granite, including all the walls, pillars and the twin towers. The stones were extracted from the quarries of the Four hills of Kowloon and were transported from Kowloon, Hong Kong[6] by sailing ships.
Since its completion in 1888, the cathedral has undergone three major repairs. The first time was in the 1920s and 1930s, when then Bishop Antoine-Pierre-Jean Fourquet, M.E.P. (魏暢茂), replaced the timber roof, beams and steel staircases with concrete ones. A second repair took place after the Cultural Revolution in the 1980s. Recently between 2004 and 2006 the largest repair works were carried out. The church paid ¥3 million and local Catholics donated about ¥2 million for the ¥26 million project, while the rest was covered by the local government. The aim of the restoration was to solve the problem of leakage by rebuilding the whole roof, which was the most challenging task as the rib vault below needed to remain untouched and intact. Most of 19th century stained glass was damaged during wartime and smashed in the Cultural Revolution, so new stained glass was ordered from a Philippine company specialising in church glass. It resulted in the new stained glass carrying English descriptions instead of Latin and French texts of the original French glass. New lighting, audio and CCTV systems were also installed. The original French mechanical clock has long gone, so a new 750,000-yuan clock tailored for the clock tower was ordered from a Chinese clock factory.

12 Apr 2017

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