Intro to Chala Cemetery
Missions from afar and stones that remember
The Chala Cemetery in Beijing, once the garden of Ming general Teng Shunzhi, became the first Christian burial ground in the capital when Matteo Ricci was interred there in 1610 with imperial approval. Over the following centuries, it received the remains of prominent Jesuits such as Johann Adam Schall von Bell, Ferdinand Verbiest, and Giuseppe Castiglione, whose scientific and artistic service at the Qing court marked a key moment in Sino-Western exchange. Their tombs, inscribed in Chinese, Latin, and Manchu, illustrate a synthesis of cultural forms. Though the site was heavily damaged during the Boxer Uprising and experienced further upheavals in the twentieth century, it was reconstructed in the 1980s and designated a protected cultural relic. Today, the Chala Cemetery endures not merely as a burial site but as a material witness to the complex and sustained dialogue between China and Europe.
