Timeline of Orthodoxy in China

The History of Orthodoxy in China is recent when compared to that of the Orthodox Church as a whole. While there is archaeological evidence of Christianity reaching western China in the seventh and eighth centuries in the form of the heretical Nestorian form, and even earlier speculative evidence to as early as the first to third centuries, historically the beginnings of Orthodox Christianity in China is traced from the seventeenth century.

Origins in Albazin (1651-1715)

• 1644-1912 Qing (Manchu) Dynasty, the last ruling dynasty of China.
• 1651 - Russian Cossack Erofey (Geoffery) Khabarov founded the fort/town of Albazin on the Amur River.
• 1665 - Church of the Resurrection and monastery founded in Albazin.
• 1685 - Chinese capture Albazin. Group of Albazin Russians, including Priest Maxim Leontiev, are re-settled to Beijing by Chinese; Qing Dynasty Emperor Kangxi ordered the Buddhist temple of Guangi Miao (Temple of the War God) in the northeast corner of the imperial city to be cleared for the Russian inhabitants, becoming the Church of Hagia Sophia, the first Orthodox Church in China.
• 1689 - Treaty of Nerchinsk established Amur River as boundary between Russia and China.
• 1698 - Consecration of the first Orthodox church, in the name of Hagia Sophia, or Divine Wisdom, in Beijing, recognized by Ignatius, Metropolitan of Tobolsk; on this auspicious occasion many Chinese received Holy Baptism, and thus the consecration of the first Orthodox Church coincided with the introduction of Orthodoxy among the Chinese.
• ca.1712 Death of Fr. Maxim Leontiev.

Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in China (1715-1956)

• 1715 - Archimandrite Ilarion (Lezhaisky), with staff, arrives in Beijing as head of the first Russian Orthodox Mission.
• 1717 - Archimandrite Ilarion (Lezhaisky) reposed in Beijing.
• 1729 - Archimandrite Antony (Platkovsky) arrives as head of the second Mission.
• 1736 - Archimandrite Ilarion (Trusov) arrives in Beijing as head of the third Mission.
• 1741 - Archimandrite Ilarion (Trusov) reposed in Beijing.
• 1745 - Archimandrite Gervasy (Lintsevsky) arrives in Beijing as head of the fourth Mission.
• 1755 - Archimandrite Amvrosy (Yumatov) arrives in Beijing as head of the fifth Mission.
• 1771 - Archimandrite Amvrosy (Yumatov) reposed in Beijing.
• 1771 - Archimandrite Nikolai (Tsvet) arrives in Beijing as head of the sixth Mission.
• 1781 - Archimandrite Ioakim (Shishkovsky) arrives in Beijing as head of the seventh Mission.
• 1794 - Archimandrite Sofrony (Gribovsky) arrives in Beijing as head of the eight Mission.
• 1807 - Archimandrite Iiakinf (Bichurin) arrives in Beijing as head of the ninth Mission, became an imminent sinologist.
• 1821 - Archimandrite Peter (Kamensky) arrives in Beijing as head of the tenth Mission.
• 1830 - Hieromonk Veniamin (Morachevich) arrives in Beijing as head of the eleventh Mission.
• 1840 - Archimandrite Policarp (Tugarinov) arrives in Beijing as head of the twelfth Mission.
• 1850 - Archimandrite Pallady (Kafarov) arrives in Beijing as head of the thirteenth Mission.
• 1858 - Archimandrite Gury (Karpov) arrives in Beijing as head of the fourteenth Mission, translated into Chinese the New Testament and church services.
• 1860 - It is said that in 1860 there were not more than 200 Orthodox in Beijing, including the descendants of naturalized Russians.
• 1865 - Archimandrite Pallady (Kafarov) returns in Beijing as head of the fifteenth Mission.
• 1879 - Archimandrite Flavian (Gorodetsky) arrives in Beijing as head of the sixteenth Mission.
• 1882 - Fr. Mitrophan Ji ordained, in Tokyo, Japan, as first Chinese Orthodox priest by St Nicholas of Japan.
• 1884 - Archimandrite Amfilohil (Lutovinov) arrives in Beijing as head of the seventeenth Mission.
• 1896 - Archimandrite Innocent (Figurovsky) arrives in Beijing as head of the eighteenth Mission.
• 1898 - The modern city of Harbin is founded, with the start of the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway by Russia, an extension of the Trans-Siberian Railway, eventually becoming a major centre of White Russian émigrés; two-hundredth anniversary of the consecration of the first Orthodox church in China.
• 1900 - Yihetuan (Boxer) revolt, an anti-Western and anti-missionary uprising in China, results in destruction of Orthodox Mission and death of 222 Chinese Orthodox martyrs; the Guan Miao area where the Albazine community lived was laid to rubble.
• 1902 - There were 32 Orthodox churches in China with close to 6,000 adherents; the church also ran schools and orphanages.
• 1903 - Orthodox communities in Manchuria (Harbin) placed under Bp. Innocent, Bishop of Beijing; church of the All Holy Martyrs of the Yihetuan Uprising is built on the grounds of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Beijing where many of the 222 martyrs were slain (later destroyed in 1957 by the Soviets).
• 1907 - St. Sophia Cathedral is built in Harbin City.
• 1912 - The Republic of China was established on January 1, 1912, after over two thousand years of imperial rule.
• 1917 - The Russian Revolution separated the Orthodox Church of China from its traditional support base in Russia, and the Chinese church had to fend for itself; the numbers of Orthodox faithful in China swelled in the wake of the Russian revolution, when anti-Bolshevik Russian emigres (White émigrés) poured across the border into China.
• 1922 - Orthodox bishops in China came under the jurisdiction of the Synod of Russian Bishops Outside Russia ROCOR; Diocese of Harbin, under ROCOR, formed.
• ca.1930 - There were more than 50,000 Orthodox in China, mostly Russians; Dioceses were established in Shanghai and Tianjin, in addition to Harbin and Beijing.
• 1930 - Church of the Intercession is built in Harbin City.
• 1931 - Archbishop Simon (Vinogradov) arrives in Beijing as head of the nineteenth Mission.
• 1933 - Bishop Victor (Svyatin) arrives in Beijing as head of the twentieth and last Mission.
• 1934-49 St. John (Maximovitch), Archbishop of Shanghai.
• 1945 - Diocese of Harbin subordinated under Moscow Patriarchate after arrival of Soviet Army; short occupation of Harbin by the Soviet Army from August 1945 to April 1946, resulting in thousands of Russian emigres being forcibly removed to the Soviet Union; the Moscow Patriarchate resumed jurisdiction over the episcopate in China from ROCOR.
• 1946 - Harbin and East Asia Diocese is transformed into the East Asia Exarchate, by Patriarchal Edict 664 of 11 June 1946.
• 1949 - Establishment of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in mainland China, by the victorious Communists; by this time 106 Orthodox churches had been opened in China, with the parishioners generally being Russian refugees, and the native Chinese element constituting at least 10,000 faithful; until 1949 there were more than 15 Russian Orthodox churches and two cemeteries in Harbin alone; after the communists came to power in China in 1949, treaties were signed between the Soviet and Chinese governments that provided for the turning over of Russian churches to Chinese control; after the communists came to power in China most of the Russians left for Australia, the United States and other places.
• 1950 - Symeon (Du) consecrated Bishop of Tainjin in July, becoming the first Chinese Orthodox bishop. Later, in September, he was transferred to be Bishop of Shanghai.
• 1954 - East Asia Exarchate abolished.

Autonomy and Decline (1956-1984)

• 1956 - Church of China under Chinese administration is established under pressure from the Chinese authorities; all non-Chinese clergy leave China; on the orders of then-Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev, the Soviet Embassy took over the territory of the Russian Orthodox mission and tore down the church.
• 1957 - Holy Synod of the Church of Russia granted autonomy to the Church of China; Vasily (Shuan) consecrated Bishop of Beijing.
• 1962 - Bp. Vasily reposed. No successor seated as Bishop of Beijing due to Chinese government constraints.
• 1965 - Bp. Symeon (Du) reposed, leaving the Chinese Church without any bishops.
• 1966 The Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) almost totally destroyed the young Chinese Orthodox Church, with some clergymen being persecuted and exiled, others tortured, churches being closed, their property confiscated, and religious activity forbidden or driven underground.
• 1978 The Constitution of the People's Republic of China guaranteed "freedom of religion" with a number of restrictions; the five recognized religions by the state include Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism, and Protestantism (Orthodoxy not registered as of yet).

Revival of the Church (1984-Present)

• 1984 Protection (Pokrov) of the Theotokos Church of Harbin (founded 1922) is reopened, with a few Russian refugees and the Orthodox Chinese being allowed to pray there in 1986; at this time is the only Orthodox church in the territory of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) where services have been going on; the resident priest Fr. Grigori Zhu (+2000) attended to the parish consisting of 144 souls ranging in age from 68 to 92.
• 1986 About 3,000 Orthodox Christians living in the predominantly Muslim autonomous area of Xinjiang were allowed to reconstruct their church in Urumqi, but with no priest present the community could only meet to pray.
• 1993 A delegation of the Russian Orthodox Church including Kirill the Metropolitan of Smolensk and Kaliningrad visited China.
• 1996 Orthodox Metropolitanate of Hong Kong and Southeast Asia founded, with its status recognised by the city's parliament, and the church operating freely in Hong Kong and Taiwan; Metr. Nikitas (Lulias) of Dardanellia becomes first Metropolitan of Diocese of Hong Kong and Southeast Asia (1996-2007).
• 1997 On the occasion of 40th year anniversary of the autonomy of the Orthodox Church in China, the Holy Synod of the ROC met on February 17 1997, deciding to take care of the Orthodox faithfull in China under the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, until a Head of the OCC can be elected; in Harbin, the beautiful St. Sophia Cathedral was renovated and opened as a museum.
• 1998 Three-hundredth anniversary of the consecration of the first Orthodox church in China.
• 2000 Death of Fr. Grigory Zhu in September, leaving the Protection (Pokrov) of the Theotokos Church in Harbin without a priest.
• 2003 Death of Fr. Alexander Du Lifu in December, the last remaining Orthodox priest in Beijing, who died without realising his dream of reopening a church in Beijing.
• 2004 Attempts are made to grow the church through cyberspace, as Mitrophan Chin, a young Chinese-American who converted to the Orthodox religion, volunteers as the webmaster for www.orthodox.cn.
• 2005 As of 2005 there were only five priests, a number expected to grow because several Chinese nationals are currently studying in Orthodox seminaries with the intention of returning to China to serve as priests.
• 2007 Τhe Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church decided to open a department concerned with the Chinese Orthodox Autonomous Church (COAC), stressing the need to continue efforts taken by its Department for External Church Relations in the dialogue with the Chinese authorities to normalize the situation of the Orthodox Church in China.
• 2008 Metr. Nektarios (Tsilis) becomes new Orthodox Bishop of Diocese of Hong Kong.

Notes

• Some of these dates are necessarily a bit vague, as records for some periods are particularly difficult to piece together accurately.
• The division of Church History into separate eras as done here will always be to some extent arbitrary, though it was attempted to group periods according to major watershed events.
• This timeline is necessarily biased toward the history of the Orthodox Church, though a number of non-Orthodox or purely political events are mentioned for their importance in history related to Orthodoxy or for reference.

See also

• Church of China
• Timeline of Church History

External Links

• Orthodoxy In China (official page of the Group for Study of Orthodoxy in China, organized by Department for External Church Relations of Moscow Patriarchate (DECR MP))
• Ecumenical Patriarchate: Orthodox Metropolitanate of Hong Kong and Southeast Asia.
• Orthodoxy In China (Mitrophan Chin's website)

Wikipedia

Origins in Albazin (Post-1685)

• Albazinians
• Russian–Manchu border conflicts

Russian Emigration to China (Post-1897)

• Harbin Russians
• Russians in China
• Chinese Eastern Railway
• Chinese Eastern Railway Zone (timeline)
• Trans-Siberian Railway

Russian Emigrees from Communism (Post-1917)

• White émigré

General

• Christianity in China
• Religion in China

Further Reading

• Dr. Kevin Baker. A History of the Orthodox Church in China, Korea and Japan. The Edwin Mellen Press, 2006. 288 pp.

(ISBN 0-7734-5886-7; ISBN 978-0-7734-5886-4)

• Paul Mooney (Beijing). Keeping the Faith. South China Morning Post, March 28, 2005.
• Antoaneta Bezlova. Old time religion struggles to survive. Asia Times, January 12, 2002.
• Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the United States of America. White Paper--Freedom of Religious Belief in China. Beijing, October, 1997.