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Church of St Francis Xavier

The Church of St Francis Xavier, known locally as Dongjiadu Cathedral, is a Catholic church in neo-Baroque style on Dongjiadu Road, near the waterfront between Shanghai's Old City and the Bund. Built between 1849 and 1853, it was the seat of the Bishop of Shanghai between 1946 and 1960 and has been listed as a cultural heritage site of the city since 1993. The building has capacity for two thousand people and its façade is decorated with statues of St Peter and St Paul. Inside it houses a French clockwork mechanism by Gourdin-Sarthe and a bell cast in Paris in 1881 by Crouzet-Hildebrand. A wooden panel with imitations of Eastern Church icons decorates the choir. However, since 2017 the cathedral has remained closed for a restoration project involving the complete excavation of its foundations from the inside, and in 2018 it was surrounded by a large construction site. The subsidiary buildings are to be demolished. No up-to-date information is available on its reopening or accessibility.

Near Church of St Francis Xavier

Source: sfx.sh