BEIJING, June 9 — Chinese authorities ordered theaters nationwide to stop showing “The Da Vinci Code” today after Chinese Catholics warned that the film could threaten social stability.

The film, based on the best-selling novel by Dan Brown that has long been criticized as insulting to the Catholic Church, has already earned more at the box office than any other film shown in China this year, and it was seen within the local industry as a contender to overtake “Titanic” as the highest grossing film here in history.

But protests by China’s official Catholic Patriotic Association and a small-scale demonstration involving a few dozen Catholics in Hebei province were cited as evidence that the film was becoming a political risk, according to people involved in the decision to stop showing it. .

That the film was allowed to run for 22 days before today’s order removing it from theaters suggested that a political compromise had been struck between Chinese Catholic leaders and the China Film Corporation, the state-owned company that imported and distributed the film.

China Film had time to recoup its investment in importing, advertising and distributing the film and to collect sizeable revenue. But the state-backed Catholic leadership was also able to claim a victory, at a time when it has been struggling with the Vatican for the loyalty of Chinese Catholics.

“Our view is that it should never have been released in the first place,” Liu Bainian, vice president of the China Patriotic Catholic Association, said in an interview. “Removing it is the right decision for the sake of social stability.”

Mr. Liu issued a call to boycott the film when it was first released here in mid-May, but the call largely went unheeded. He declined to comment on why the authorities reversed themselves after several weeks of brisk ticket sales, but hailed the decision as a victory.

“Of course, we are very happy,” he said.

Weng Li, a spokesman for China Film, said the withdrawal had nothing to do with politics, and was entirely a commercial decision by the company based on declining tickets sales.

“The decision we made is no different from the way such decisions are made in America or anywhere else,” he said. “It was based solely on ticket sales and not on any other factor.”

He said that China Film had a number of other films awaiting release in theaters, including movies celebrating the Communist Party’s 85th anniversary on July 1, and that “The Da Vinci Code” was crowding them out.

But a more senior official at China Film said China’s Propaganda Department ordered the film removed from screens. The official, who said he could not be named because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, said the film had earned more than 100 million Chinese yuan, or about $13 million, and continued to sell far more tickets than any other offering in Chinese cinemas.

“The decision was political, and had nothing to do with declining ticket sales,” the official said.

Foreign and domestic films are subject to intensive political vetting before being shown in China. Authorities tend to watch most closely for content that they think could undermine the Communist Party’s hold on power.

It is unclear whether religious authorities were allowed to scrutinize “The Da Vinci Code” before it was first shown in China on May 19, part of a simultaneous global release.

But shortly after the Vatican urged all Catholics around the world to boycott the film, China’s official Catholic church also called for a boycott. Some local Catholics said they viewed the quick reaction of the state-controlled Catholic church as an attempt to show that it is as attentive to Catholic sensitivities as the Vatican.

China’s official Catholic church has been sparring with the Vatican in recent weeks over the appointment of bishops, a struggle that undermined progress toward forging diplomatic ties between Beijing and the Vatican.

The religious case against the film gathered steam later in May, when a group of Catholics in the city of Handan in Hebei province threatened to burn down a theater that planned to show the film, according to Chinese Catholics and news reports in Hong Kong. There were scattered reports of small-scale street demonstrations in Handan as well.

The threat of social unrest was cited by religious authorities in Beijing as a reason to remove the film from theaters, according to people told about the decision. But China Film did not issue the withdrawal order until ticket sales passed the 100 million yuan mark, making it one of the highest grossing movies in Chinese history.