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Wellsprings
Xu Guangqi

Xu Guangqi

1562 CE1633 CE · Shanghai

Xu Guangqi or Hsü Kuang-ch'i (April 24, 1562 – November 8, 1633), also known by his baptismal name Paul or Paul Siu, was a Chinese agronomist, astronomer, mathematician, politician, and writer during the late Ming dynasty. Xu was appointed by the Chinese Emperor in 1629 to be the leader of the Shixian calendar reform, which he embarked on with the assistance of Jesuits. Xu was a colleague and collaborator of the Italian Jesuits Matteo Ricci and Sabatino de Ursis and assisted their translation of several classic Western texts into Chinese, including part of Euclid's Elements. He was also the author of the Nong Zheng Quan Shu, a treatise on agriculture. He is one of the "Three Pillars of Chinese Catholicism". The Roman Catholic Church considers him a Servant of God. On April 15, 2011, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi announced the start of a beatification process for Xu Guangqi, which has stalled.

Adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

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Shanghai

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About Shanghai

Shanghai, a port city in China, became a refuge for thousands of European Jews during World War II, including the Mir Yeshiva, which relocated there from Kobe, Japan, in 1941 and continued its studies in the Shanghai ghetto for the duration of the war -- the only major European yeshiva to survive the Holocaust intact.

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