A newly-built Catholic church has opened in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, local authorities said
on Wednesday.
The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, a mock Gothic-style
building located in the Wanzhou District of Chongqing, covers 4,460
square meters, a spokesman with the Chongqing Municipal Committee
of Ethnic and Religious Affairs said.
Around 7.35 million yuan (US$967,000) was spent on the
construction of the church, including 3 million yuan donated by
overseas Catholics and 3.25 million yuan by the Chinese central
government and the Chongqing municipal government, the spokesman
said.
More than 2,000 Catholics attended a ceremony held on June 29,
the feast of St Peter and Paul, to mark the completion of the
construction.
The church is a reconstruction of a former church which was
originally built by French priests in 1908. Local authorities
knocked down the old church and began building two new ones in 2000
to make room for the massive Three Gorges Project.
The other church went into use in 2004 but construction of this
latest one was delayed due to a lack of funds.
(Xinhua News Agency July 5, 2007)