Royston Anthony Lin, M.A

Royston Anthony Lin, M.A. Lecturer Office: KG IV, Room 4425  Office Hours: Please e-mail Royston Lin to make an appointment. Telephone: 0761/203-3418 Email: royston.lin@geschichte.uni-freiburg.de

Doctoral Project

Catholic Veneration of Saints in Ming and Qing China

This dissertation project will focus on the practice of venerating and honouring saints among the Christians in China during the Ming and Qing Dynasty. Using devotions to saints as a springboard, this study hopes to contribute to a greater understanding of the tangled and ambivalent relationship between Catholicism and Chinese belief systems, how Catholicism was integrated (if at all) into the religious and sociocultural landscape of the late imperial period, as well as how Chinese Christians interpreted and practised these devotions. 

To achieve these wider objectives, this research seeks to examine at three areas pertaining to the Catholic veneration of saints set against the religious and sociocultural backdrop of late imperial China: first, the custom of honouring the dead (saints) as spiritual advocates in the Christian tradition; second, the cult of (that is, the various types of devotions to) Catholic saints among Chinese Christians; and third, the ways to remember these heavenly friends. Pulling these different threads together, the study will finally look at how the Chinese mission contributed to the making of saints when Christianity was later outlawed. Some of those who perished during this period of Christian persecution were later collectively canonised by the late Pope John Paul II in 2000.

Research Interests

Education