Andrej Majcen

Andrej Majcen was a Slovenian Catholic priest and professed member of the Salesians of Don Bosco who spent most of his active ministry as a missionary in East Asia. He was born on 30 November 1905 in Ruše, in the Styrian lands of Austria-Hungary (today in Slovenia). Formed in the Salesian tradition of Saint John Bosco, he completed his religious profession and studies for the priesthood and was ordained in the early 1930s. Soon afterward he was sent to the China mission, joining Salesian works that combined education, technical training, and pastoral care for poor and working youth.

His years in China coincided with the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Chinese Civil War, and the communist victory of 1949. Salesian communities in China ran schools, oratories, and parishes until foreign missionaries were expelled in the early 1950s. Majcen then continued his apostolate in Vietnam, where the Salesians had established a presence. For more than two decades he served in educational and pastoral settings among Vietnamese youth, remaining through the Vietnam War and the political upheaval that followed.

After the reunification of Vietnam under communist rule in 1975, foreign missionaries were generally required to leave. Majcen returned to Slovenia, then a republic of Yugoslavia, and lived in the Salesian community in Ljubljana. In his later years he was known among fellow Salesians and the faithful for missionary perseverance, personal simplicity, and lasting concern for the young.

He died in Ljubljana on 21 September 1999. Within the Salesian Family and the Church in Slovenia he is remembered as a dedicated missionary of the twentieth century. A cause for beatification has been introduced, but he has not been beatified or canonized. His life illustrates both the global outreach of the Salesians and the hardships faced by missionaries in China and Vietnam during an era of war and political change.