Yan'an, China - The Catholic community in Yan'an, the cradle of China's communist revolution, has won permission to build its first church in more than seven decades in a sign of the religious revival sweeping the country.
After years of negotiations between Yan'an's small but growing congregation of Christians and suspicious Communist Party leaders, agreement has been reached for a new site on the city's outskirts.
It is a dramatic turnaround for a church that fled its magnificent cathedral in advance of the arrival of Chairman Mao at the end of the Long March, and suffered years of persecution.
"This is a sacred place to the Communist Party," said Fr Peter Zhang, the young priest who ministers to 600 Catholics in the town, up from a handful a decade ago, and others in towns nearby. He said he thought there were still believers who kept their faith secret, but the new church might give them confidence to reveal themselves.
"People who lived through the Cultural Revolution still worry that they might face another disaster like that. But I don't think that will happen. Before, the party opposed landlords too, and opposed scholars, and now they want everyone to own property and get educated."
advertisement
Religion in all forms has seen a rebirth in the last decade in China, as worshippers have emerged from their secret conclaves.
Perhaps most surprising, given the country's Buddhist and Taoist traditions, has been the explosion in the numbers of Christians.
It has been aided by the scale of social change and the vacuum left by the collapse of adherence to Marxist ideology.
Government figures say that 16 million Protestants and six million Catholics are registered with the two state-approved churches, but tens of millions more worship in unregistered churches and are often subject to persecution.
Worshippers in Yan'an, Mao's headquarters from 1937-47 during the Japanese occupation and the civil war, say both denominations are spreading from the neighbouring province of Shanxi, a heartland of Christianity since the days of European missionaries a century ago.
In addition, migrant labourers are coming to the town, bringing their religion with them.
"Five or 10 families join at every major festival," said Sister Teresa He, a nun who lives in quarters below the meeting hall currently used for services.
She said Catholics in the city still recalled people being tortured and killed in the cultural revolution. Two of her uncles were taken away to prison.
"The family received letters saying not to bother coming to look for them," she said. "That way, the family knew they were dead."
The old cathedral in the southern part of the town was completed in 1934 by a Spanish Franciscan missionary priest but abandoned the following year. It was then used as a meeting hall by Mao and was the site of denunciations of his foes.
The church asked for it back years ago, said Fr Zhang, but the authorities had refused. But they did eventually agree to compensate the Catholics and allocated it land in a less prominent spot.