(ZENIT News – OMPress / Paris, 01.22.2026).- With the restoration of Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral, a pilgrimage route has been created within the Cathedral, which, starting from great biblical figures and passing through Saints linked to Paris, culminates in a «missionary sending forth», the Chapel of Saint Paul Chen, a young Chinese martyr of Missionary Childhood.
This boy’s birth name was Changpin. He was born into a non-Christian family, and his father saw him as a burden. To get rid of him, he abandoned him at an orphanage run by Catholic nuns who cared for him thanks to the support they received from the Work of Holy Childhood, now the Pontifical Society of Missionary Childhood. This same support continues to reach many children around the world today, giving them hope and helping them realize their dreams. And Paul Chen knew exactly what he wanted. One day he told the missionaries he wanted to be a priest . . . the problem was that he wasn’t even baptized, so it was at the Minor Seminary itself, after proper preparation, that he received Baptism surrounded by his fellow seminarians. Upon his Baptism, he took Saint Paul’s name, the first missionary. Paul Chen had a great desire to bring Christ to all those who did not know Him, so he studied tirelessly, helped others, and promoted the work of the Missionary Childhood in China, of which he was a member.
At the age of 23, in the midst of the persecution of Christians, he was arrested along with another seminarian. After a harsh period in prison, which he could have ended simply by renouncing his faith, he was finally executed on July 29, 1861. His feast day is celebrated on July 9, the feast of 120 Chinese martyrs.
The relics of this young seminarian were brought by Bishop Louis Faurie, the Apostolic Vicar of Kweichow, the present-day Chinese Archdiocese of Guiyang, who had sent him to the Seminary of the Foreign Missions of Paris, where Bishop Faurie himself was formed as a seminarian. Years later, after being beatified in 1909 by Pope Pius X, the International Director of the Work of Holy Childhood, Monsignor Roger de Teil, organized a solemn transfer from the Chapel of the Missionary Seminary to Notre Dame Cathedral. It was June 10, 1920. His relics were deposited in the Chapel of Holy Childhood that already existed in the Parisian Cathedral.
The ceremony was presided over by Cardinal Léon-Adolphe Amette, Archbishop of Paris, in the presence of five missionary Bishops from different continents, members of the three mission seminaries in the French capital — the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris, the Spiritans and the Lazarists — and a large number of children associated with Holy Childhood. There was also a group of young Chinese students in Paris. The eulogy for the Blessed was delivered by the missionary Bishop Paul-Marie Reynaud, a Lazarist and Apostolic Vicar of Eastern Zhejiang.
In 2016, shortly before the famous Notre Dame Cathedral fire, a renovation of the Chapel of Holy Childhood was launched to highlight the connection between this Work and China, so that the many Chinese tourists visiting the Cathedral would be aware of the links and connect them to it. Yin Xin, a Chinese painter, was contacted and accepted the commission to create three original works of Chinese inspiration: «The Virgin and Child,» a painting by Paul Chen, and a «duilian» — a diptych — with two Chinese prayers.
In «The Virgin and Child,» following the tradition of so many artistic works depicting the Virgin and Child, the ray of light does not emanate from an external candle, but from the Child Jesus himself, whom Mary holds in her arms. On the canvas are the two Chinese ideograms sheng mu (聖母), which literally mean «Holy Mother,» and which Chinese Catholics use to translate «Our Lady.» On either side of the sculpture of Jesus with the children, a work by Geoffroy-Dechaume from 1854, are the two phrases from the diptych: (神恩廣闊遍宇宙 主愛高深滿人間) they can be translated as: «The immensity of divine grace permeates the universe» and «God’s infinite love fulfills human expectations.»
On Sunday, May 27, 2018, in the presence of the artist and numerous members of the Chinese community of Paris, Archbishop Michel Aupetit blessed the newly decorated Chapel in memory of Saint Paul Chen. Explanatory panels in French, English, and Chinese allowed visitors to better understand the unique character of this Chinese Chapel within Notre Dame Cathedral.
A year later, in April 2019, a fire broke out, which did not affect this Chapel. However, in the Cathedral’s post-fire renovation project, the nave’s side chapels have been arranged along a pilgrimage route. This route begins to the north of the building, on ‘l’allée de la Promesse’ (the Way of the Promise), featuring important biblical figures from the Old Testament, from Noah to Elijah, and continues to the south, on ‘l’allée de la Pentecôte’ (the Way of Pentecost), dedicated to the Church and the development of holiness in the members of Christ. Saints follow one another: the wisdom of Solomon is reflected in the intelligence of Saint Thomas Aquinas, the figure of Isaiah’s service in the spirit of service of Saint Vincent de Paul, and so on. Each Chapel is dedicated to a Saint whose life is linked to the Archdiocese of Paris and who offers a particular expression of the work of the Holy Spirit.
In this grand ensemble, Paul Chen not only does not go unnoticed, but he is placed at the end of the Pentecostal path, opposite Noah, as the fulfillment of the biblical narratives: faithfulness, the universality of salvation, etc. This position allows the tour of the Cathedral to conclude with a «missionary sending forth,» a dispatch to the mission, the end of Pentecost. The Promise remains, and sacred history continues throughout the world. In the Chapel of Holy Infancy, now renamed as that of Saint Paul Chen, the Spirit of unity is made visible in the Chinese features of Mary and her Son and in the presence of a Chinese martyr who benefited from the solidarity of other children who helped him from afar through the missionaries.
