The St. Emil Church is the largest Catholic Church in Qingdao, Shandong Province. The church is located at Dexian Road. Local citizens of Qingdao used to call it the Catholic Church. Established in the early 1930s, the church was the largest Gothic architecture in Qingdao as well as a masterpiece of Christian architecture.

After climbing the steep road off Zhongshan Lu, the 200ft twin spires rise majestically before you, claiming dominance over the surrounding buildings. The cool white interior is interestingly offset by garish pictures and life-size wax models of famous Christians, including a huge mural of a beatific Mary and some simple, tattily clothed Franciscans.

The construction of Catholic Church began in 1932 and ended in 1934. Covering an area of 2470 square meters, the church is built of yellow granites and ferroconcretes, and the fa?ade is carved with concise and graceful patterns. The grand and sober windows are half arciform with fluent lines. A huge rosace was set on the gate. There are red-tiled bell towers of over 56 meters high on each side of the main entrance with a cross of more than 4.5 meters high on the top. Inside each tower four great bells are hung. Once the bells ring, the sound can be heard miles away. Behind the entrance there is a roomy and bright hall of over 18 meters high, which can accommodate more than 1,000 people. Soft light passes through rosace. Two ambulatories stand on both east and west sides of the hall. There are two large altars and four small altars behind the hall. The eikon painted on the hall's vault and the dazzling lamplights make the church full of religious atmosphere.

The religious activities of the Catholic church are active. Worship ceremonies will be held on Sundays, when the hall is full of adherents, the priest presides the mass, and adherents sing fair-sounding anthems with the accompaniment of a piano, and pray devoutly. The Easter and Christmas are grand festivals for Catholicism. Ceremonious felicitation rites are held in the church every year with a passionate festive atmosphere.

The area around this church is also well worth a wander, with old 30s German buildings mixed in with modern Chinese concrete. The cobbled streets leading up to the church are normally filled with local Muslim vendors selling their wares, the meat and octupi on stick look intriguing, and are worth tasting.

Opening hours for the Church are highly variable and out of season the place only seems to open on Sundays, but even without entrance this area is definitely good to visit. Access to the twin towers was blocked off for renovations at the time of writing, but it is always worth asking about. As with the nearby Protestant Church, services are normally held here every Sunday.