The Cathedral Church of Saint John the Evangelist is the cathedral of the Anglican Diocese of Hong Kong Island, and mother church to the Province of Hong Kong and Macao. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Hong Kong and the Bishop of Hong Kong Island. At Garden Road, Central, the cathedral is located in a prime central position, surrounded by the Bank of China Tower,

Cheung Kong Center Cheung Kong Center is a skyscraper in Central, Hong Kong designed by Cesar Pelli. It is 68 storeys tall with height of and a gross floor area of . When completed in 1999, it was the third-tallest building in the city after the Central Pl ...

, HSBC Building,

Court of Final Appeal Building The Court of Final Appeal Building, also known as the Old Supreme Court Building, is the home of the Court of Final Appeal of Hong Kong. It housed the former Supreme Court from 1912 to 1983 and the Legislative Council from 1985 to 2011. ...

, Former Central Government Offices, and the

Former French Mission Building The Former French Mission Building is a declared monument located on Government Hill at 1, Battery Path, Central, Hong Kong. It housed the Court of Final Appeal of Hong Kong from 1 July 1997 to 6 September 2015. Antiquities and Monuments ...

. St John's Cathedral is one of the five cathedrals in Hong Kong. The others are Holy Trinity Cathedral (Anglican), All Saints' Cathedral (Anglican), St Luke Orthodox Cathedral (

Eastern Orthodox Eastern Orthodoxy, also known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is one of the three main branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholicism and Protestantism. Like the Pentarchy of the first millennium, the mainstream (or "canonica ...

), and the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception (

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: * Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...

History

The congregation that would become the cathedral held its first Sunday service on Sunday, 11 March 1849, as "Hongkong Colonial Chapel", the founding church of the Diocese of Victoria. It was consecrated as St John's Cathedral by The Rt Revd George Smith, Bishop of Victoria in 1852. On the morning of 8 December 1941, the day after their attack on

Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the Naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the R ...

, the Japanese attacked Hong Kong. On Christmas morning 1941 the Reverend Alaric P. Rose took the morning service in St John's with a congregation of one hundred, while shelling continued on the island. During the

Japanese Occupation of Hong Kong The Imperial Japanese occupation of Hong Kong began when the Governor of Hong Kong, Sir Mark Young, surrendered the British Crown colony of Hong Kong to the Empire of Japan on 25 December 1941. The surrender occurred after 18 days of fierce ...

, the cathedral was converted into a club for the Japanese. Many of the original fittings were stripped out, including the original stained glass windows, which had been created by

William Morris William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, architectural conservationist, printer, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He ...

' firm. On 9 September 1945, the first service after the arrival of the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...

was held in the cathedral. In 1981, Peter Kwong became the first Chinese Bishop of Hong Kong. The site of St John's Cathedral is the only freehold land in Hong Kong, granted in

fee simple In English law, a fee simple or fee simple absolute is an estate in land, a form of freehold ownership. A "fee" is a vested, inheritable, present possessory interest in land. A "fee simple" is real property held without limit of time (i.e., per ...

pursuant to s.6(1) of the Church of England Trust Ordinance (Cap.1014) of 1930. All other

land tenure In common law systems, land tenure, from the French verb "tenir" means "to hold", is the legal regime in which land owned by an individual is possessed by someone else who is said to "hold" the land, based on an agreement between both individua ...

in Hong Kong is

leasehold A leasehold estate is an ownership of a temporary right to hold land or property in which a lessee or a tenant holds rights of real property by some form of title from a lessor or landlord. Although a tenant does hold rights to real property, a l ...

in nature. On 5 June 2012, there was a service of thanksgiving at the Cathedral in honour of the

Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II The year 2012 marked the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II being the 60th anniversary of the accession of Queen Elizabeth II on 6 February 1952. The only diamond jubilee celebration for any of Elizabeth's predecessors was in 1897, for the 60th an ...

Architecture

It is the oldest surviving Western ecclesiastical building in Hong Kong, and the oldest Anglican church in the Far East. The cathedral's architectural style is a plain, unadorned adaptation of 13th century English and Decorated Gothic, which was the popular revivalist style for churches at the time. Along the north wall is a memorial tablet to Captain William Thornton Bate RN, who was killed in the battle on Canton in 1857. A similar tablet is found at St Ann's Church in Portsea,

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council. Portsmouth is the most d ...

, Hampshire. The bell tower of the cathedral is decorated with a large "VR" on the west face, in commemoration of the institution's founding during the

reign A reign is the period of a person's or dynasty's occupation of the office of monarch of a nation (e.g., Saudi Arabia, Belgium, Andorra), of a people (e.g., the Franks, the Zulus) or of a spiritual community (e.g., Catholicism, Tibetan Buddhism, ...

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previ ...

. The north and south faces of the tower are decorated with the coats-of-arms of two former governors of Hong Kong, Sir John Davis and Sir George Bonham. There were reports that the main doors of the cathedral are made with wood planks salvaged from , but according to a 2016 article published by the ''

South China Morning Post The ''South China Morning Post'' (''SCMP''), with its Sunday edition, the ''Sunday Morning Post'', is a Hong Kong-based English-language newspaper owned by Alibaba Group. Founded in 1903 by Tse Tsan-tai and Alfred Cunningham, it has remaine ...

'', that is untrue. The first pew on the south side of the interior bears the Royal Arms, as it was formerly reserved for the governor or any member of the

Royal Family A royal family is the immediate family of kings/queens, emirs/emiras, sultans/ sultanas, or raja/ rani and sometimes their extended family. The term imperial family appropriately describes the family of an emperor or empress, and the term pa ...

visiting Hong Kong before the Handover in 1997. It was declared a monument of Hong Kong in 1996.

War Memorial

Next to the cathedral is a large Memorial Cross, unveiled by Governor Sir Reginald Stubbs in 1921 in memory of the soldiers killed in the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

. During the Japanese occupation the cross was reduced to a straight granite column. In 1952 it was replaced by a

Celtic cross The Celtic cross is a form of Christian cross featuring a nimbus or ring that emerged in Ireland, France and Great Britain in the Early Middle Ages. A type of ringed cross, it became widespread through its use in the stone high crosses ...

, with an inscription added to commemorate those who had died in both World Wars. The original bronze tablet with the names of the First World War dead is held inside the cathedral, in St Michael's Chapel. Every year ex-British Army members hold a memorial service at the Memorial Cross. Beside the Memorial Cross is a tombstone covering the remains of Private Ronald Douglas Maxwell, who was killed in

Wan Chai Wan Chai is situated at the western part of the Wan Chai District on the northern shore of Hong Kong Island, in Hong Kong. Its other boundaries are Canal Road to the east, Arsenal Street to the west and Bowen Road to the south. The area nor ...

three days before the ceasefire. This is the only grave within the cathedral precinct, and is registered by the

Commonwealth War Graves Commission The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) is an intergovernmental organisation of six independent member states whose principal function is to mark, record and maintain the graves and places of commemoration of Commonwealth of Nations ...

Clergy

Gallery

Hong Kong - panoramio (146).jpg, View from Garden Road HK St John's Cathedral Interior.jpg, Interior of St John's Cathedral Grave of Ronald Douglas Maxwell November 2016.jpg, the grave of Ronald Douglas Maxwell

References

External links

St John's Cathedral Official Site

Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui

CWGC: St John's Cathedral Grounds
{{Authority control Anglican cathedrals in Asia Anglican church buildings in Hong Kong Anglican Diocese of Hong Kong Island Cathedrals in Hong Kong Central, Hong Kong Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries in Hong Kong Deans of Hong Kong Declared monuments of Hong Kong Government Hill Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui Churches completed in 1849 1847 establishments in Hong Kong