Fuzhou Catholic Church, namely, Fuzhou San Josee Cathedral, is located in Lingzhishan Road, the east of Wenchang Bridge of Fuzhou City. It was built up in the 34th year of GuangXu in Qing Dynasty. (A.D.1908) and was completed in 1918. The whole church covers an area of 3850 square metres. The main building covers 2109 square metres.
This is a Cathedral of the Gothic order, with a pointed arch and pinnacle edifice which is decorated by black brick, red stone and white granite with light white line in bright colours. There are a Bell Tower and a Tower on both sides of the church facade. The Bell Tower is up to 28.4 meters with a gate and two small doors. There are high pointed-windows, large-scale white rose, copper cross and stone-inscription niche on the gate. The solemn statues like Jesus, Virgin Mary, Joseph, and angel statue have been set in the niche. There is a gate respectively at the back of the church in the east and west. In front of the two gates, there is a tower in the north and south respectively. The church is elegant and grand. 58 heavy and strong red Corinth posts stand in the inner of the church. The dome is 15.3 meters away from the floor, the vaulted framework tendons are scattered from the top just like the empty vault covers the whole inner space. On the central niche of the church, there are Joseph, Jesus, and Virgin Mary statues. The church walls are decorated by 14,200 pieces of colorful glassed windows. The highest colorful window is 13.5 meters that embodies sufficiently people’s hope to seek the bright life after 12th century.
Fuzhou Catholic Church manages the religion affairs of 6 counties including Le’an, Yihuang, Chongren, Linchuan, Dongxiang and Jinxi. Meanwhile, it has established Zhenhua primary school, Dehua primary school, Zhenguang middle school, the old people’s hall and hospital and other charity and education projects. San Josee Convent has been established in Shangdundu Town of Linchuan at that time. During the Anti-Japanese War period, the church suffered havoc due to the Japanese fighters booming. In the Autumn of 1951, Priest Huang Ke’ai has been deported because he disobeyed the Chinese policy and decree. During “The Great Culture Revolution” period, all the altas and statues in the church had been smashed. The church had been taken as the storehouse or classroom by the factory or school. The building had been damaged. In 1982, it returned to Catholic Church according to the Party’s religion policy. In October of 1985, the concerning departments of the state, the province and the city appropriated funds to repair the building and was completed in November 1987. On 8th December 1987, the local government held ceremonious ceremony for resuming the church and arranged the professional priest to carry out Mass and other religion activities every day. From 2003 to 2004, Priest Li Suguang made great efforts to promote provincial Catholic Patriotic Union to support repairing and decorating the church again.