This present article examines the European missionaries’ legal struggle to overturn the verdicts that resulted from the Calendar Case (曆獄 liyu) and recover the legal status of their religion to that of the pre-Calendar Case. Although the case ended and Europeans and their churches were kept relatively safe, this ‘salvation’ was not the result of acquittal from the charges the missionaries had faced during the Case, but of the Manchu emperor’s interference instead. Thus, after the closure of the Calendar Case, Beijing missionaries had to make intense efforts to nullify the three confirmed charges and remove all vestige of the Calendar Case. By doing so, they expected the beginning of a new rosy era, like that of the Shunzhi period. However, the privileges the missionaries enjoyed during the Shunzhi reign were exceptional―ones possible only by imperial favour beyond legal boundaries.
