Ferdinand Verbiest
At a time when the future of Christian faith seemed to be bright in China, the Chinese Rites controversy was raging in Europe. Charles-Thomas Maillard de Tournon, a papal legate, arrived in Beijing in 1705 purportedly to inquire on the orthodoxy of the Chinese rites (particularly the 'Veneration of Ancestors' ritual, accepted by the Jesuits). In fact Tournon's mind was made up. By completely disregarding Chinese customs and etiquette, he offended the Kangxi Emperor who had first received him well. No pleading of Antoine Thomas, then Superior of the Jesuits in China, could prevent Tournon from issuing a decree from Nanjing (1707) obliging the missionaries under severe penalties to abolish those rites. A last desperate attempt of Thomas, beseeching the legate to defer the implementation of the decree until further news was received from Rome, fell on deaf ears. Thomas died soon after in 1709 in Beijing, and was buried close to his friend and predecessor Ferdinand Verbiest in the Jesuits' Zhalan Cemetery in Beijing.