THOSE who are familiar with the history of the Christian Missions in China and of the Sino-Western relations will perhaps remember that the present year of 2008 marks the 300th anniversary of the death in Beijing of Fr. Tomás Pereira, S.J.
Tomás Pereira was born in Northern Portugal in 1645, left for China in 1666 as a Jesuit missionary and lived in Beijing from 1673 until his death in 1708. A strong religious character and a competent missionary, he occupied important functions in the hierarchy of the Society of Jesus in China. Working at the court of Kangxi Emperor for more than thirty years, Tomás Pereira not only forged a unique and privileged personal relationship with the Emperor, but also served as an innovative musician and a skilful mediator in Sino-Russian affairs leading to the success of the Nerchinsk Treaty. He built the new Nantang Church in Beijing, and was an ad interim...
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WHEN in 1672 the 27 year old Jesuit Tomás Pereira(1645-1708), quartered at the Jesuit College in Macau, was summoned to the Forbidden City in Beijing by the 18 year old Manchurian Emperor Kangxi (born in 1654; Emperor of China from 1661 to 1722), it was one of the most auspicious news that had been received in the Portuguese enclave in South China for a decade.
Macau had recently passed through one of the most harrowing experiences in its history owing to an imperial edict, issued early in February of 1662, suspending China’s navigation and ordering all coastal populations to move to the interior of the country. Although Macau was eventually spared it nonetheless continued to be barred from maritime trade with outside regions. Two year later, under the powerful influence of the astronomer Yang Guangxian persecution of Jesuit missionaries broke out, to be resolved only five years later after the death of Adam Schall von Bell....
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