St John's Cathedral ( zh, t=聖約翰座堂, s=圣约翰座堂, first=t, w=Shêng4-yüeh1-han4 tso4-tʽang2, p=Shèngyuēhàn zuòtáng), today known as Gospel Church ( zh, t=福音堂, s=福音堂, w=Fu2-yin1 tʽang2, p=Fúyīn táng, links=no), is a

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

church situated on Yangtianjing Street in the

county-level city A county-level municipality (), county-level city or county city, formerly known as prefecture-controlled city (1949–1970: ; 1970–1983: ), is a county-level administrative division of the People's Republic of China. County-level ...

of Langzhong,

Nanchong Nanchong (; Sichuanese: lan2cong1) is a prefecture-level city in the northeast of Sichuan province, China, with an area of . At the 2020 census it was home to 5,607,565 people, of whom 1,936,534 lived in the built-up (or 'metro') area made of th ...

Sichuan Province Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of th ...

. Founded in 1908, the church was formerly the Anglican cathedral of the Szechwan Diocese of the Church in China, and the largest Anglican church in

Southwest China Southwest China () is a region in the south of the People's Republic of China. Geography Southwest China is a rugged and mountainous region, transitioning between the Tibetan Plateau to the west and the Chinese coastal hills (东南丘陵) and ...

History

Interior of St John the Evangelist's Cathedral, Paoning

Survey of Paoning Anglican Mission, published in 1913

The first Anglican church in Langzhong (then known as Langchung, Paoning or Paoning Foo aoning / Baoning Fu, the Trinity Church, built in 1893, had become too small as the number of converts had increased. After a series of problems, St John's was eventually built on Yangtianjing Street, under the supervision of William Cassels, one of the

Cambridge Seven The Cambridge Seven were six students from Cambridge University and one from the Royal Military Academy, who in 1885, decided to become missionaries to China through the China Inland Mission. The seven were: * Charles Thomas Studd * Montagu ...

, and the then missionary bishop in the Diocese of Western China. Construction began in 1913 and finished in 1914. The cathedral was designed by the Australian architect George A. Rogers, and built in the fusion of

neo-Gothic Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

and traditional Sichuanese architectural styles. It occupies an area of nearly 4000 square metres, with a cemetery, a library, a well, a flower garden and a vegetable garden. Cassels died in 1925 and buried in the garden of St John's. Montagu Proctor-Beauchamp, also one of the Cambridge Seven, was buried in the cemetery of the cathedral in 1939. After the communist takeover of China in 1949, Christian Churches in China were forced to sever their ties with respective overseas Churches, which has thus led to the merging of St John's into the communist-established Three-Self Patriotic Church.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint John's Cathedral, Langzhong 20th-century Anglican church buildings 20th-century churches in China Anglican cathedrals in China Protestant churches in China Langzhong Gothic Revival church buildings in China Churches completed in 1914 Religious organizations established in 1908 Buildings and structures in Nanchong

History

See also

References