 The regular bishop of Jingxian, Mathias Chen Xilu, had been in a coma since 2002 after a stroke.His predecessor, Bishop Peter Fan Wenxing, was retired and lived in a small congregation.Feng became the first priest with a higher academic degree from abroad who was bishopriced for the Catholic Church in China after the religious policy of the Mao era was laid down in the 1980s and the religions were allowed to rebuild their work.