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Orthodox Christianity has had a small presence in Taiwan since at least 1901, when a parish was established by [[Nicholas of Japan|St. Nicholas (Kasatskin), Archbishop of Japan]]. <ref> https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=553900138004240&set=a.553892188005035.1073741830.530595883667999&type=3&theater </ref> Little is known about these early years. [[Nicholas (Saiama) of Ramenskoe]] was born 1914 in Taihoku (Taipei). <ref> http://www.orthodox.cn/contemporary/sayama_en.htm http://www.orthodox.cn/news/20080826nikolaisayama_en.htm </ref>
In 1949, several a number of Russians arrived from China (e.g. Shanghai, Harbin, Xinjiang) in the wake of the Chinese Civil War, and began gathering in Taipei's Cafe Astoria. Mention is made of a Korean War-era funeral led by Bishop (later Archbishop) [[John (Shahovskoy)] of San Francisco]], then a U.S. army chaplain en route from Korea to the USA. Archbishop [[Ireney (Bekish)]] of Tokyo (later New York) made annual visits to Taipei between 1957 and 1959, celebrating divine liturgy in a private home at No. 18, Lane 132, N. Jianguo Road, called the Church of the Forerunner. In 1960 he ceded these duties to an American military chaplain, Fr. Nikolay Kirilyuk. 1965 saw a visit by Metropolitan [http://orthodoxwiki.org/Vladimir_%28Nagosky%29_of_San_Francisco Vladimir (Sagosky)] of Japan (later San Francisco), American military chaplain Archpriest Peter Zurnovich, and Fr. Kirill Arihara. The number of Orthodox faithful in Taiwan has been variously estimated at 50 (in 1960), 100 (in 1958), and 200 (in 1965).<ref> http://www.orthodox.cn/localchurch/taiwan/1958-1959ireney_en.htm http://orthodox.cn/localchurch/taiwan/glebrar_en.htm http://www.orthodox.cn/localchurch/taiwan/19650120vladimir_en.htm </ref> The Russian community's most famous member, ROC President Chiang Ching-kuo's Belarussian-born wife Chiang Fang-liang (née Faina Ipat'evna Vakhreva), did not attend services (and may have nominally affiliated with her husband's Methodism). By the 1970's the church had again dwindled into inactivity.
In 2000, a Greek [[hieromonk]], Fr. Jonah (Mourtos) of [[Gregoriou Monastery (Athos)]], arrived, under the auspices of the recently-created [[Orthodox Metropolitanate of Hong Kong and Southeast Asia]] (OMHKSEA, f. 1996, and affiliated with the [[Ecumenical Patriarch]]), and with financial backing from the [[Kosmas Aitolos Missionary Society]] of Greece. He had previously been posted to missionary churches in Zaire and Calcutta. A small congregation of perhaps 30 people (swelling to more than a hundred at Christmas and Easter) formed as the Holy Trinity Orthodox Church (Taipei), aka the Orthodox Church in Taiwan, which formally registered with the government in 2003. It originally met in hotels and borrowed Catholic church buildings, then in a rented storefront in Taipei's Tianmu district, before moving to a fourth-floor apartment in Xindian. The congregation has included a mixture of Russians and East Europeans, as well as Chinese and Western converts. Liturgy is conducted in English, with parts translated into Chinese, Russian, and/or Greek. A satellite group, led by a lay reader, has been meeting in Taizhong.
