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.

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 (Russian fort/town).
  • 1685 - Chinese capture Albazin. Group of Albazin Russians, including Priest Maxim Leontiev, are re-settled to Beijing by Chinese; Qing Dynasty Emperor Kangxi (1661-1722) 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, recognzing Russia's sovereignty over eastern Siberia.
  • 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; Emperor Kangxi had initiated the practice of receiving missions of about ten-years, of Orthodox clergy and students.
  • 1717 - Archimandrite Ilarion (Lezhaisky) reposed in Beijing.
  • 1727 - The first mission is recorded in the Russo-Chinese treaty of 1727, in Article V[1] allowing for the legal establishment of a Russian religious institution in Beijing, as well as defining official trade ties and demarcating the border.
  • 1729 - Archimandrite Antony (Platkovsky) arrives as head of the second Mission.
  • 1730 - The mission reported that there were more than 50 baptized persons among the Chinese and Manchus, excluding women; construction of the Tea Road (Siberian Route) begun, starting in Moscow and terminating at Kyakhta, a trading point on the border between Russia and the Qing Empire.
  • 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.
  • 1806 - By 1806 eight separate missions had been sent to live in the Manchu capital and the Russian establishment included buildings that housed the mission proper (Uspeniya Presvyatoi Bogoroditsu) or "Conception of the Holiest Mother of God", the Nikolskii church, a school of Chinese and Manchu studies, and a Manchu school of Russian studies.
  • 1807 - Archimandrite Iiakinf (Bichurin) arrives in Beijing as head of the ninth Mission, became an imminent sinologist.
  • 1812 - Following Napoleon's invasion of Russia, all contact between the mission and the homeland was lost, and for a time the mission members had to survive by their own efforts and small allowances from the Chinese govemment.
  • 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; after the Treaty of Tianjin the status of the mission changed in that its diplomatic activities on behalf of Russia became obsolete.
  • 1860 - About 150 priests worked in the mission; although it is estimated that there were not more than 200 Orthodox in Beijing, including the descendants of naturalized Russians; after the Treaty of Peking other countries as well as Russia were allowed to open diplomatic embassies; the old Russian presence in Beijing became known as the Northern Yard (Beiguan - reserved for the Russian Orthodox priests), and a Southern Yard (Nannguan) was established for the Ambassador, with both remaining important.
  • 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, including destruction of its famous library.
  • 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.
  • 1916 - There were 32 Orthodox mission churches in various provinces with 5,587 Chinese followers; within twenty years that number was estimated at 10,000.[2]
  • 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.
  • 1956 - Archbishop Victor (Svyatin), the last Russian bishop and leader of the 20th Spiritual Mission, returned to the Soviet Union, following agreements reached between Nikita Khruschev and Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung), drawing to a close a variegated chapter in the history of Orthodoxy in China.

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[3] and Protestantism (Orthodoxy not registered as of yet[4]).

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; Archimandrite Fr. Jonah (Mourtos) arrived in Taiwan in September to lead the mission of the church there, having spent seventeen years as a monk on Mount Athos; according to the 2000 census, 30,505 Evenks were counted in China, a nominally Orthodox Christian ethnic group (self-identified Orthodox minority in China), living in the Hulunbuir region in the north.
  • 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; the Chinese government allowed a hieromonk from Russia to visit the Pokrov Church in Harbin to hear confessions in both Russian and Chinese in July; in August a Russian Orthodox Church delegation led by Bishop Mark of Egorevsk met with Chinese officials and representatives of the country's various religious organizations.
  • 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

External Links

Wikipedia

Origins in Albazin (Post-1685)
Russian Emigration to China (Post-1897)
Russian Emigrees from Communism (Post-1917)
General

Further Reading

(ISBN 0-7734-5886-7; ISBN 978-0-7734-5886-4)
(ISBN 0674781295; ISBN 9780674781290)
(ISBN 7508503805; ISBN 9787508503806)

Articles

References

  1. The fifth article of the treaty provided for four priests and six students to live in Peking until they felt like retirning to Russia, at which time they would be replaced by a new contingent. The mission, was to be supported in various ways by both countries. In return, it answered a mutual need for continuous contact between the capitals of St. Petersburg and Peking. (Eric Widmer. The Russian ecclesiastical mission in Peking during the eighteenth century. Harvard Univ Asia Center, 1976. p.4).
  2. Stephen Uhalley and Xiaoxin Wu. China and Christianity: Burdened Past, Hopeful Future. M.E. Sharpe, 2001. p.22
  3. While the Roman Catholic Church is officially banned in the country, the Chinese government demands that all Chinese "Catholics" must be loyal to the State, and that worship must legally be conducted through State-approved churches belonging to the "Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association", established in 1957 by the People's Republic of China's Religious Affairs Bureau to exercise state supervision over mainland China's Catholics.
  4. The officially declared reason for the government's non-recognition of The Orthodox Church is the government's fear that external political forces from outside nations — in this case, primarily Russia — could achieve influence within China. This places the Church to the legal status of religia-illicitata. (Encyclopedia - Chinese Orthodox Church, at Global Oneness).