The Divine Word Missionaries built a church in the Jiaozhou Bay concession in Shandong in 1902, and in 1934 erected the cathedral, which remained nominally under their administration until 1964.

In the early 1950s, all foreign missionaries, including the Bishop of Qingdao, were either imprisoned or expelled from China, and during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) the cathedral was defaced and abandoned.

Some of these port areas were directly leased by foreign powers, such as the concessions in China, effectively removing them from the control of local governments.

[2] In 1891 the Qing government decided to make Qingdao (commonly spelled "Tsingtao") defensible against naval attack and began to improve the existing fortifications of the town.

[2][3] In the spring of 1898, the German government signed a treaty that allowed the Germans to lease an area of 540 square kilometres (130,000 acres; 210 sq mi) for 99 years (or until 1997, as the British did in Hong Kong's New Territories and the French did in Kouang-Tchéou-Wan), to construct a railway to Jinan, the capital of Shandong province, and to exploit coalfields along the railroad.

After the farmers and fishermen of the Chinese village sold their buildings and land and resettled in the rural communities further east,[4] the Germans began to develop the area.

Wide streets, solid housing areas, government buildings, electrification throughout, a sewer system and a safe drinking water supply were improvements that transformed the impoverished fishing village of Tsingtao into a modern German town.

[6] At the time, the area was part of the Apostolic Vicariate of Shantung, managed by Italian Franciscans, who were tasked with rebuilding the earlier Catholic mission work.

The new vicariate apostolic was headquartered in Yanzhou, Shandong, and headed by Bishop Johann Baptist von Anzer, SVD, who led it until November 24, 1903.

Major Kopka von Lossow, commander of the Third Sea Battalion which was stationed in Qingdao, ordered about a hundred of his men to attend services every Sunday.

[11] On a hill chosen by Bishop von Anzer,[11] Father Bartels purchased some land on Qufu Road, having a printing house and the SVD mission hall erected in 1902.

Father Alfred Fräbel designed the present neo-Romanesque structure,[12][14] built during the tenure of Bishop Weig, who is entombed in the cathedral.

[15] Upon his return on May 27, he was greeted by representatives of the government of Shandong Province, who had arranged a welcome in his honor, with the United States Marine Band playing outside the main entrance of the cathedral.

[20] During the Civil War period (1946–1949), missionaries in Shandong Province experienced growing tensions with the Communists, spurring one of them, Father Augustin Olbert, SVD, to write: The Reds do not slacken and will in the end remain victorious.

[15] On June 2, 1949, the People's Liberation Army entered Qingdao and both the city and Shandong Province have since been under Communist control.

The stage had been set for the Communists' catastrophic assault on the missionary enterprise during the Civil War period (1946–1949) and the expulsion of virtually all foreigners in the early 1950s.

In 1951, the Diocese of Qingdao's Bishop Augustin Olbert, SVD, was arrested, served 22 months in prison, and was then deported to Germany in 1953.

Professor Jean-Paul Wiest, Research Associate at the Centre for the Study of Religion and Chinese Society wrote: "The witness of Bishop Gong Pinmei of Shanghai and many others who chose jail, labor camps, and even death for the sake of their faith and their loyalty to the pope would sustain countless people in the years ahead.

[27] The Diocese of Qingdao went without an ordinary until the state-run Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association consecrated and appointed Bishop Paul Han Xirang, OFM, without papal sanction in 1988.

Numerous people watched from windows, from the streets, from the beaches, and from the mountaintops as several small, ghostlike figures climbed up to the crosses.

Not long after that, I occasionally passed by the church and was astonished to see the topped crosses: what originally appeared to be two thin needles [when viewed from the towers] was actually the size of two coarse, heavy men, one taller than the other.

A major document presented at the September 1979 Fourth Plenum of the 11th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, gave a "preliminary assessment" of the entire 30-year period of CCP rule.

At the plenum, party Vice Chairman Ye Jianying declared the Cultural Revolution "an appalling catastrophe" and "the most severe setback to [the] socialist cause since [1949].

[17] In 2005, city workers repairing water pipes accidentally found the original crosses buried on Longshan Road, not far from the cathedral.

[37] The change in prevailing political views also allowed for rapprochement with Chinese clergy formerly imprisoned during the Cultural Revolution.

It is cruciform in plan, having a nave flanked by a lower single aisle on either side, crossed by a transept, and with a semi-circular apse projecting at the east end.

The towers of the cathedral in Qingdao were higher than all the other churches in the major cities of Northern China – Tianjin, Beijing, Dalian, or Jinan.

A dove with a white halo, representing the Holy Spirit,[39] flies just below God, wings outstretched, completing the Trinity.

Bishop Weig's tombstone shows obvious signs of defacement, being chipped around the edges, and with broken stonework at its base.

The south transept also contains three large murals:[41] the Holy child praying, St. Thérèse of Lisieux (patroness of missions),[32] and the Nativity.