In 1583 Matthew Ricci (1552-1610) went to China intent upon teaching the Chinese about God and establishing a Christian church.  A Jesuit missionary from Italy, Ricci learned the Chinese language, read Confucian classics and studied ways to make Christianity understandable to the Chinese.

For thirty years, Ricci made friends with the Chinese, taught scholars about astronomy, and studied religion and language with the Chinese.  He believed a Chinese might become a Christian while still remaining a loyal member of his family, an official, and a Confucian scholar.  Ricci and a group of Jesuits took residence in Peking and converted a number of important persons, including an imperial prince.

Like the apostle Paul among the Athenians (Acts 17:22-23), Ricci believed the Chinese were religious but didn't have a complete understanding of God.  He found Chinese terms for God which the Chinese could understand.  He taught that Chinese religious practices reached their perfection in the Christian faith.

The Jesuit missions effort in China produced good results and the Christian outreach stayed in good favor with the Chinese Ming emperors, even through a dynasty change in the 17th century.  By the early 1700s between 200-300 thousand Chinese were Christians.  

The Christian influence in China declined in the late 1700s, however, because of a controversy within the Catholic Church that accused Ricci and the Jesuits of compromising Christian beliefs with Chinese religion.  In the twentieth century a papal reversal affirmed the significant missions work of Ricci and the Jesuits in China during the 16th-18th centuries.

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