Introduction -- ANA CRISTINA VILLA BETANCOURT: Women in the Church: The Perspective of Mulieris Dignitatem -- GAIL KING: Candida Xu (1607–1680), Chinese Christian Woman of Faith -- CLAUDIA VON COLLANI: Christian Heroines in China: Expectations, Images, and Examples -- SONJA HUANG MEI TIN 黃渼婷: Chinese Women at Court and in the Church -- LI JI 李紀: “Little Flowers”: Chinese Christian Women in Northeast China -- KANG ZHIJIE 康志杰: They Are Brilliant Lilies: Special Characteristics of the Work of Chinese Catholic Virgins -- R. G. TIEDEMANN: Chinese Female Propagators of the Faith in Modern China: The Tortuous Transition from the “Institute of Virgins” to Diocesan Religious Congregations -- FREDRIK FÄLLMAN: “Two Small Copper Coins” and Much More: Chinese Protestant Women and Their Contributions to the Church-Cases from Past and Present -- TANG YAOGUANG 唐耀光: The Challenges and Response of the Catholic Church in China during the Late 19th and First Half of the 20th Century: Xu Zongze’s Views on Women -- KWONG LAI KUEN 鄺麗娟: Progressing toward a Spirituality of Chinese Women in the Holy Spirit-A Spirituality of the Holy Spirit: An Exploration of Female Spirituality in the Holy Spirit -- PIOTR ADAMEK, SVD: “Unworthy to Be Quoted among the Believers-Worthy to Be Quoted among the Martyrs”: Women in the Orthodox Church in China -- KATRIN FIEDLER: Invisible and Invincible: Changing Female Roles in the Chinese Protestant Church and Their Perceptions -- Notes on contributors.

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The history of Christianity in China provides very limited material about women playing a significant role in the Church. However, both in the past as in the present Chinese female Christians had and have an important or even crucial impact on the life of the Church, even if their role was commonly undervalued in reports and neglected in the research. Thus, many women in the Church in China have often remained nameless.

While in the West the vital role of women in the Church has been slowly recognized, in China, however, this is not yet the case. Due to the specificity of its history and society, the significance of Christian women has been overlooked and underappreciated. The names of Chinese women who are significant in the history of the Church are hardly known to the majority of the Chinese believers.

Many questions regarding the research on the impact of Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox women on the Church in China still remain unanswered. A systematic study of the historical sources and extensive field research are both desiderata in this area. Through the publication of research presented at the international workshop “I Have Called You by Name. Contribution of Chinese Women to the Church” in September 25-26, 2014 in Sankt Augustin (Germany), we hope to carry the urgency of such research more clearly into the academic world.-- p. [4] of cover.

Women in imperial China: ideal, stereotype, and reality / Jessie G. Lutz -- Christian women of China in the seventeenth century / Gail King -- A necessary evil: the contribution of Chinese "virgins" to the growth of the Catholic Church in late Qing China / R.G. Tiedemann -- Child bodies, blessed bodies: the contest between Christian virginity and Confucial chastity / Eugenion Menegon -- Christian virgins in early Qing, Sichuan / Robert Entenmann -- Models of female Christians in early twentieth-century China: historiographical study / Peter Chen-Main Wang -- Gospel and gender: female Christians in Chaozhou, South China / Joseph Tse-Hei Lee -- Women and Christianity in rural north Henan, 1890-1912 / Margo S. Gewurtz -- Lady Candida Xu: a widow between Chinese and Christian ideals / Claudia von Collani -- Bible women / Ling Oi Ki -- Establishing a female medical elite: the early history of the nursing profession in China / John R. Stanley -- "To develop native powers": Shi Meiyu and the Danforth Memorial Hospital Nursing School, 1903-1920 / Connie Shemo -- "Mothers to our country": education and ideology among Chinese Protestant women, 1870-1930 / Ryan Dunch -- Chinese nationalism and Christian womanhood in early twentieth-century China: the story of Mary Gao (Gao Meiyu) / M. Cristina Zaccarini -- The advance to higher learning: power, modernization, and the beginnings of women's education at Canton Christian College / Dong Wang -- Women's education and social mobility / Jessie G. Lutz -- Beyond missions: Christianity as a Chinese religion in a changing China / Jessie G. Lutz.