Sheshan Basilica

The Sheshan Basilica (佘山进教之佑圣母大殿, Shéshān Jìnjiào Zhī Yòu Shèngmǔ Dàdiàn) is a red-brick Catholic church on top of Sheshan Hill in Songjiang District, in the far west of Shanghai. It is the city’s main Marian pilgrimage site and a minor basilica. Visitors come for the hilltop setting as much as for the building, which Chinese Wikipedia puts about 98 metres above sea level.

The story begins in the 1860s, when French Jesuits bought land on the hill and built a sanatorium and a small chapel. On 1 March 1868 Bishop Adrien Languillat blessed the chapel and an image of Our Lady Help of Christians. A first hilltop church followed, designed by the Jesuit brother Léon Mariot and consecrated on 15 April 1873. A zigzag path with 14 Stations of the Cross was laid up the hill, and building materials were carried up by hand. In 1894 a church in traditional Chinese style, seating more than 500, was rebuilt halfway up.

The present basilica replaced that first church. English Wikipedia dates the work 1924 to 1935 and Chinese Wikipedia 1925 to 1935, with the blessing on 16 November 1935; Wikidata gives 1925. The sources also differ on authorship. Chinese Wikipedia credits the Portuguese Jesuit Ye Zhaochang (François-Xavier Diniz) with design and construction. English Wikipedia says the Belgian Jesuit Alphonse De Moerloose drew the plans and Diniz supervised the build. On 12 September 1942 Pope Pius XII raised it to minor basilica.

The building is Romanesque in style, a Latin-cross plan 56 metres long and 25 metres wide, in red brick with pointed-arch coloured-glass windows and green glazed roof tiles. At the southwest corner a square bell tower, 38 metres high, carries a 4.8-metre copper figure of Mary with the Christ child.

Damage came in the Cultural Revolution from 1966, when the tower statue, stained glass and Stations of the Cross were destroyed. The basilica was returned to the Shanghai Catholic diocese in 1981, repaired by 1984, and a new statue was blessed on the tower in April 2000. Every May tens of thousands of Catholics make a pilgrimage here, climbing the Stations of the Cross before Mass.

On the same hill stands the Sheshan Observatory (佘山天文台), built by French Jesuits around 1899. English Wikipedia says it was nationalised in the 1950s and merged in 1962 with the Xujiahui Observatory.

Practical notes: this is a working church, so be quiet and respectful during services. Chinese Wikipedia says the hill is part of a national forest park that has charged admission, with a separate entrance for worshippers, but current arrangements were not found, so check before you go.