Anglicanism In Sichuan

Anglicanism in Sichuan refers to the history and implantation of Anglicanism in the Chinese province of Sichuan (formerly romanized as Szechwan, Szechuan, or Ssuchuan; also referred to as "Western China"). Anglicanism, along with Methodism, were the two largest Protestant denominations in that province.

History

First Anglican missionaries

The Cambridge Seven were Anglicans serving under the interdenominational society China Inland Mission (CIM). Four of them were going to be the first Anglican missionaries working in the western province of Sichuan. William Cassels, was already an ordained priest; Arthur T. Polhill-Turner, was studying for holy orders when he volunteered for the mission in China; Montagu Proctor-Beauchamp, a baronet from the Proctor-Beauchamp family; and Arthur's elder brother Cecil H. Polhill-Turner, a Pentecostal revivalist. They left London for China on 5 February 1885. After studying the local language, the four were transferred to Sichuan in 1887. Cassels held the licence of George Moule, Bishop of Mid-China, as the Western China district fell within the Mid-China jurisdiction by the time. Arthur was before long ordained both deacon and priest by the same Bishop. Cecil was first based at the capital Chengtu and the eastern Sichuan city Chungking, but he felt drawn towards the people of Tibet. After helping with mission work in Kalimpong in India in 1896, he moved to Tatsienlu, a Khams Tibetan city of western Sichuan. From there he had laboured on the Sino- and Indo-Tibetan borders since then.

In 1893, Trinity Church was built in Paoning under Cassels's supervision. As the first Anglican church in Sichuan, the chosen style was in consideration of being more acceptable to the locals. It adopted the style of traditional residential buildings in northern Sichuan, fully blended into the surroundings. The British explorer Isabella Bird described in her book ''The Yangtze Valley and Beyond'', that the church "is Chinese in style, the chancel windows are 'glazed' with coloured paper to simulate stained glass, and it is seated for two hundred. ..The church was crammed at matins, and crowds stood outside, where they could both see and hear, this publicity contrasting with the Roman practice."

At the close of 1891, the Rev. James Heywood Horsburgh of Church Missionary Society (CMS, belonging to the Church of England), along with his wife Mrs Horsburgh, the Rev. O. M. Jackson, three laymen, and six single women missionaries, entered Sichuan as the first band of CMS missionaries to take up work in that province. By an amicable arrangement with the CIM, the northern part of the province was divided into two districts. The district lies mainly to the north of the capital Chengtu was occupied by the CMS, while the CIM's Church of England district was to the east of that of the CMS.

When Horsburgh's party first arrived, they were unable to secure or rent any houses in the principal towns of what was to be the occupied area of their future mission; and they dwelled at first with their fellow-workers of the CIM. It did not take them long, however, to begin itinerant work, staying for days or weeks at local inns, such brief stays not at all fruitless. Among the leaders of this group was an exceptionally gifted woman, Alice Entwistle, who was largely responsible for the opening of the important town of Miencheo (also, Mienchow).

By 1894, CMS work had started in Mienchow, Chungpa, Anhsien, Mienchu and Sintu; the first CMS church was founded in Chungpa in 1894. By 1908, CMS alone claimed eight stations in an area of approximately one hundred and fifty square miles, all of which were in the northwest of the province. Meanwhile the CIM workers, based in Paoning, were also breaking ground in northeast Sichuan. Arthur Polhill spent ten years (1888–1898) in Pachau doing evangelism. In 1899 he moved to Suiting, where he built a large multi-purpose Gospel Hall in 1904. A number of outstations were established following the building's completion.

At that time, Sichuan was the landlocked, westernmost province of China, bordering Tibet. It was quite isolated, compared with those coastal provinces in east China. The missionaries scattered, and the persistent state of turmoil of the countryside with war, banditry and general unrest made the work difficult and dangerous.

Prior to 1895, CMS mission in Sichuan had been under the direction of George Moule, the Bishop of Mid-China, but it was quite impossible for him to give adequate supervision to a region nearly 2,000 miles away from his headquarters, and it was therefore decided to create a new Diocese of Western China (also, Diocese of Szechwan). With the approval of the Archbishop of Canterbury ( Edward White Benson) and the CMS, Cassels was consecrated bishop on St. Luke's Day, 18 October 1895, at Westminster Abbey.

That same year was marked by a serious outbreak of anti-foreign agitation which spread throughout the province. In the capital Chengtu, the property of three Protestant missions and that of the Roman Catholics was destroyed, and in other towns the work of the CMS stations was temporarily disrupted. The missionaries, however, were able to remain at their posts, and despite opposition and occasional waves of intense anti-foreign sentiment, the work continued to go forward until the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. This unrest did not affect Sichuan so much as some other parts of China, nevertheless missionaries were obliged by consular orders to retire to the coast. During their absence, the local converts defended their faith and carried on all the regular services.

20th century

Following the establishment of the Diocese of Western China and the increasing number of converts, the Trinity Church had become too small. Construction of a neo-Gothic pro-cathedral began in 1913 under the supervision of the Australian architect George A. Rogers. Upon the completion of the construction, Cassels invited the Bishop of Hankow, Logan H. Roots, to come and preach a series of sermons in connection with the opening of the pro-cathedral. This caused some dissension among the foreign staff. As staunch evangelicals, they were upset by the idea of something to be called a ''cathedral''. Two of the women missionaries were particularly upset by the presence of two bishops in their convocation robes, standing posture at the offertory, and flowers in two handsome vases placed within the chancel rails. They found vent in other spheres of work. In addition, the diocese founded its official newsletter, '' The Bulletin of the Diocese of Western China'', in 1904. It was renamed several times during its 54-year run, with the last print published in 1958.

The growing maturity of the Sichuanese Church was seen in Cassels's appointment of Ku Ho-lin as archdeacon in 1918. Ku was remarkable as a convert from Mohammedanism, and had been one of those who held the Church together when foreign staff had to leave during the Boxer Rebellion. Overseeing the greatly increased number of congregations was becoming too much for Cassels alone. As early as 1915, he raised with the Archbishop of Canterbury ( Randall Davidson) the question of the division of the diocese. It did not seem advisable at the time, but relief was given by the appointments of an archdeacon and of Howard Mowll as assistant bishop in 1922, who was particularly in charge of the CMS district. Cassels welcomed the Bible Churchmen's Missionary Society (BCMS, seceded from the CMS in 1922) field workers when they approached him, as he had welcomed Rev. Horsburgh and his party many years before. He wrote: "With regard to the BCMS coming into the diocese, I must say I am most thankful to think that there is some prospect of them taking up the work in the Kwangan, Yochih and Linshui region, which is now left without any oversight."

In 1921, members of fanatical bands self-denominated " Divine Soldiers", killed six or seven Christians in Wanhsien, eastern Sichuan. The province was also affected by the widespread Anti-Christian Movement in the 1920s, which had its origins in the east and north parts of China, such as Shanghai and Peking.

Bishop Cassels died on 7 November 1925. He had served forty years in Sichuan, based at Langchung (Paoning), thirty of these years as bishop, and was succeeded by Howard Mowll. It was largely the result of Cassels's work that Christianity in its Anglican form had become well established in eastern Sichuan. In 1885, there was no Christian congregation apart from Roman Catholics. In a letter written nearly forty years after his arrival in Sichuan, Cassels gave a brief account of the mission's achievements:

The mission work mostly concentrated on evangelisation in villages and towns, instead of big institutions and schools. There was, however, a Church hospital at Langchung. For a time there was also a girls' school, a small theological college and a preacher's training school. The Langchung Hospital was for a long time the only hospital in northeast Sichuan. Hospitals were also maintained at Suiting and Liangshan. In Eastern Sichuan district, the aid came from the CIM and later from the BCMS; in Western Sichuan district the CMS. Anglicanism was much less widespread in the latter district than in the former, although it did extend to Sungpan and Mowchow, practically in the Tibetan region. A Church hospital was built at Mienchu, western Sichuan, where Dr. John Howard Lechler had worked for thirty years since 1908. For a time, Montagu Robert Lawrence, T. E. Lawrence's elder brother, worked there as a locum during Lechler's absence.

In 1918, the CMS became a partner in the West China Union University created by four Protestant mission societies in 1910 in the capital. Tha Anglicans provided at different times several members of staff for the university, including Dr. H. G. Anderson, who was working at its College of Medicine and Dentistry. They also provided a hostel for students there. In 1923, during the Anti-Christian Movement, two English clergymen, F. J. Watt and R. A. Whiteside, were shot to death by brigands among the mountains between Mienchuhsien and Mowchow. One of them was a teacher of a boys' boarding school at Mienchow.

In 1929, Bishop Mowll appointed two assistant bishops for the West China Diocese. Ku Ho-lin (also, Ku Shou-tzi) was entrusted with the northeast Sichuan district, which owed its origin to the Anglican section of the CIM; and Song Cheng-chih with the west Sichuan district where the Church's connection was with the CMS. Ku's consecration took place on 16 June at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in Langchung. Brook Hannah, the assistant superintendent, served as litany reader during the ceremony. Song's consecration took place on 29 June at St. Thomas' Church in Mienchu.

That same year (1929), an evangelical Anglican missionary, Vyvyan Donnithorne, was sent to Hanchow by the CMS. He served as pastor at the local Gospel Church until 1949, before being transferred to the Canary Islands, Spain. During his stay in Hanchow, he was appointed a member of the West China Border Research Society and a key figure in the discovery of the archaeological site now known as Sanxingdui.

A Chinese translation of the ''Book of Common Prayer'' was published in 1932, revised and authorized for use in the Diocese of Szechwan. In 1933, Bishop Mowll left to take up his new post as Archbishop of Sydney and John Holden was transferred from the Diocese of Kwangsi-Hunan to succeed him.

The middle 1930s was an extremely difficult period for the Church in Sichuan. The communist armies retreated through Sichuan to Shaanxi as they were driven out of Jiangxi by the Nationalist armies. Church workers had no choice but to temporarily leave their mission centres due to widespread lawlessness and banditry along the armies' retreat route. During this period, Bishop Holden made considerable advances in transferring authority and responsibility to the locals that were still almost held exclusively by the CMS mission conference by the 1930s.

In 1936, the Diocese of Western China was split into Diocese of East Szechwan and Diocese of West Szechwan. Holden continued as bishop of the new Diocese of West Szechwan until being forced to return to England because of ill-health the following year. He was succeeded by Song Cheng-chih. Frank Houghton was consecrated as first bishop of the new Diocese of East Szechwan. Ku Ho-ling continued as assistant bishop of East Szechwan until he retired in 1947. Kenneth Bevan became bishop of East Szechwan after Houghton's resignation in 1940. During this period, in addition to hospitals in Langchung and Liangshan, the Church also had middle schools in Tahsien and Liangshan. Two celebrations were held in 1945, one for the Golden Jubilee of the Diocese of Szechwan, the other for the Diamond Jubilee of the start of the Anglican mission in Sichuan.

Current situation

After the communist takeover of China in 1949, Protestant Churches in China were forced to sever their ties with respective overseas Churches, which has thus led to the merging of all the denominations into communist-sanctioned Three-Self Patriotic Church.

The Anglican Church in China was never formally dissolved, but all activities had ceased by 1958.

Gallery

File:The St. John's Christian Church in Chengdu 01 2014-09.JPG, St. John's Church, Chengtu (CIM)
File:Gospel Church of Mianyang.jpg, Gospel Church, Mienchow ( CMS)
File:江油福音堂.jpg, Gospel Church, Chungpa (CMS)
File:Iglesia de la Trinidad, Paoning.jpg, Interior of the Trinity Church at Paoning, 1890s (CIM)
File:Interior of St John the Evangelist's Cathedral, Paoning.png, Interior of St. John's Cathedral at Paoning, 1910s (CIM)

See also

* Christianity in Sichuan
** Catholic Church in Sichuan
** Protestantism in Sichuan
*** Methodism in Sichuan
*** Quakerism in Sichuan
*** Baptist Christianity in Sichuan
*** Seventh-day Adventist Church in Sichuan
* Anti-Christian Movement (China)
* Anti-missionary riots in China
* Church Missionary Society in China
* Denunciation Movement
* House church (China)
* :Diocese of Szechwan
* :Anglican missionaries in Sichuan

References

Bibliography

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{{History of Christianity, state=collapsed

History of Anglicanism
History of Christianity in Sichuan