Timeline of Orthodoxy in China

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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.

Early Visits (1651-1712)

  • 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 Hagia Sophia Church in Beijing, recognized by Ignatius, Metropolitan of Tobolsk.

Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in China (1712-1954)

  • 1716 - 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 1903 - Orthodox communities in Manchuria (Harbin) placed under Bishop of Beijing (Bp. Innocent).
  • 1907 - St. Sofia Cathedral in Harbin is completed.
  • 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 (Harbin Russians) poured across the border into China.
  • 1922 - Diocese of Harbin, under ROCOR, formed.
  • 1931 - Archbishop Simon (Vinogradov) arrives in Beijing as head of the nineteenth Mission.
  • 1930 - Church of the Intercession is built in Harbin.
  • 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.
  • 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); by this time 106 Orthodox churches had been opened in China, with the parishers 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.
  • 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 - Exarchate abolished.

Autonomy and Decline (1954-1984)

  • 1956 - Church of China under Chinese administration established. 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 including Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism, and Protestantism (not as yet for Orthodoxy).

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; is presently the only Orthodox church in the territory of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC), where services have been going on.
  • 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 the church operating freely in Hong Kong and Taiwan.
  • 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. Sofia Cathedral was renovated and opened as a museum.
  • 2003 Fr. Alexander Du Lifu, the last remaining Orthodox priest in Beijing, died in December 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.
  • 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.

See also

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))
  • Orthodoxy In China (Mitrophan Chin's website)

Further Reading

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