History of the Province

Christianity in China

Christianity has been in China for a very long time, but it has had difficulty growing roots. East Syrian missionaries from the Church of the East, the so-called Nestorians, went to China in the seventh century and then again in the thirteenth century (when the Franciscans also came) but the churches they established all but disappeared. Beginning in the late sixteenth century, Matteo Ricci and other Jesuits were successful in engaging in a dialogue with Chinese culture, but their efforts were cut short when Pope Clement XI condemned the Chinese Rites in 1715. Robert Morrison's arrival in Macau in 1807 represented the start of the Protestant mission in China. From then until at least the middle of the twentieth century, the development of Chinese Christianity was both facilitated and hampered by the forces of colonialism and imperialism. The Church developed slowly, but until very recently it was seen as a "foreign" or even "colonial" church. It is important to recall the early Chinese Christian tradition, and the development of Christianity alongside colonialism, because they have both shaped the history of the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui.¹

Literal meaning of “Sheng Kung Hui”

Sheng Kung Hui（聖公會）literally means "Holy Catholic Church" in Chinese. It is a term created in the mid-nineteenth century and became the accepted name for the Church that British Anglican and American Episcopalian missionaries (later joined by the Canadians) were trying to establish in China. The same Chinese characters（聖公會）are used in the names of the Anglican Church of Korea, the Nippon Sei Ko Kai in Japan and other Chinese Anglican and Episcopal churches.

Today, the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui (HKSKH) is a province within the Anglican Communion, a Church in accordance with accepted traditions and usages of that communion, locally adapted, within the One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Ours is a Church "beyond colonial Anglicanism," and the HKSKH is very much more than an historical accident or a decadent legacy of Anglo-Saxon imperialism.² We share a special history with other Chinese Anglican and Episcopal churches, in Asia and in the Chinese diaspora.

Early Anglican Missionaries in China and Hong Kong

The first Anglicans in China were chaplains employed by the East India Company, who arrived in Macau just a few years after Morrison. The Anglican Church in Hong Kong began with the appointment of Reverend Vincent Stanton as Colonial Chaplain in 1843. Hong Kong had been established as a British colony the previous year, and by the time Stanton arrived, there were already plans to erect a church. Stanton had been in China a few years earlier, but had then returned to England. There he began raising funds for what would become St. John's Cathedral (founded in 1849) and St. Paul's College (established 1851), one of the oldest secondary school in the territory.

In 1849, the Diocese of Victoria was created by Royal Letters Patent, and The Rt Reverend George Smith was appointed the first Diocesan Bishop. He too had been in China earlier, to investigate mission prospects for the Church Missionary Society (CMS). Over the next century, CMS sent many English missionaries to Hong Kong and mainland China. Bishop Smith had a strong commitment in developing the Chinese Church, and spent much of his time on visitations in his diocese that included all of China and Japan. He ordained Lo Sam-yuen, the first Chinese deacon in Hong Kong, and began to build up the church in those parts of China under his jurisdiction.

Bishop Smith (1849-1864) and his successor Bishop Charles Richard Alford (1867-1872) had authority over what was the largest diocese there has ever been in the Anglican Communion. Bishop Alford resigned his See when Victoria was split to form another new diocese of North China, for he saw it as a lessening of his authority. In 1872 John Shaw Burdon became the first Hong Kong bishop appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury.  In 1883, Japan became a separate province-in-formation. In 1906, Fukien became a new diocese, and it was always the area with the largest concentration of Anglicans in China. In 1909, Kwangsi-Hunan became a separate diocese, and in 1947 the Yunkwei Diocese was created. These new dioceses indicated that the Church was growing, albeit slowly. In Hong Kong, society was rapidly changing as well, due to the building up of an infrastructure that encouraged trade, migration and investment.

Anglicans played an important role in establishing a mission to seafarers, in Hong Kong and other cities on the China coast. Although the Church was initially under the Colonial Office, St. John's Cathedral and the Diocese of Victoria, were, in effect, "disestablished and dis-endowed" by government decree in 1892. Henceforth, the Church would increasingly develop its own means of support, although education and social service work would continue to receive government funding and patronage.

CMS missionaries established primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. Chinese Christians also played an important role in education, and they pioneered in social welfare for the poor, including schools for the disadvantaged, almshouses for the elderly and free medical clinics. Both missionaries and Chinese Christians addressed key social issues such as opium use and the improvement of the status of women. A commitment to education and social welfare has always been an important feature of the mission of the Church in Hong Kong right up to the present.

Establishment of Chung Hua Sheng Kung Hui (CHSKH)

Due to the ecclesial tensions in China between the British, American and (later) Canadian missionaries up through the early twentieth century, the Bishops and clergy of the Sheng Kung Hui met in 1897, 1899, 1903 and 1909 to work for unity. These discussions led to the establishment of the Chung Hua Sheng Kung Hui ("The Holy Catholic Church of China") in 1912. This was the first Protestant (Non-Roman) denomination in China. It was recognized as an independent province at the Seventh Lambeth Conference in 1930, by which time Chinese bishops, priests and laity were increasingly providing the ideas, leadership and direction for the Sheng Kung Hui.

The (Chinese) Diocese of South China held its first Synod in 1913, and it also overlapped with the (English) Diocese of Victoria, which was confined to the colony of Hong Kong. These overlapping dioceses, and the inevitable tensions between the English and the Chinese, created a certain confusion. In the Diocese of Victoria, the early bishops were all CMS men. Bishop Burdon (1874-1897) was a committed missionary as well as a sinologist who translated early versions of the New Testament and the Book of Common Prayer. Some British residents in the colony complained that he never gave sufficient attention to them! Bishop Hoare (1898-1906), who had extensive experience with CMS in Ningpo, devoted his energy to theological education and the mission to seafarers.  Bishops Lander (1906-1920) and Duppuy (1920-1932), built up diocesan infrastructure a financial base and relations with the CHSKH.  Bishop R. O. Hall (1932-1966), was the first non-CMS bishop, but for the first time, his appointment was confirmed by the House of Bishops of the CHSKH.

Development of Chinese Churches

The bishops and CMS missionaries supported the idea of the Church in Hong Kong becoming more Chinese, but the major work toward that end had to be done by Chinese Christians themselves. St. Stephen’s Church, the first Chinese Anglican Church in Hong Kong, was founded in 1865. It became the mother church of all the other Chinese churches started in the nineteenth century. Reverend Kwong Yat-Shau, was the first Chinese priest in charge of St. Stephens, also started Holy Trinity Church in Kowloon. Reverend Mok Shau Tsang worked under Kwong for a time, but he later returned to Canton, where he was appointed Assistant Bishop in 1934, and did much to build up the Sheng Kung Hui in parts of the diocese north of Hong Kong. Reverend Lee Kau Yan was a priest in the same tradition, combining work for church and society in a career spanning forty-five years. These three are examples of the strong Chinese clergy tradition that was emerging in Hong Kong. For all Chinese priests, before and since, contextualization by whatever name was a crucial issue for the Church.

Post-war Years

In 1951, the Standing Committee of the CHSKH, acting on behalf of the Synod, petitioned the House of Bishops to create a new "Diocese of Hong Kong and Macau" to become a detached diocese, faithful in its order and worship to the Canons and Constitutions of the CHSKH. What had once been perhaps the largest diocese in the world, was now the smallest, limited to the territories of Hong Kong and Macau on the edge of a New China.

In the 1950s, refugees from the mainland poured into Hong Kong, and the church responded with new programs of outreach, education and mission. The Diocese of Hong Kong and Macau promoted ecumenical co-operation, and also started new schools, welfare settlements and parishes. There was little contact with the church in China during this time, although in 1956 Bishop Hall became the only Hong Kong church leader to visit the mainland in the 1950s. Later that same year, an expanded meeting of the House of Bishops of CHSKH was held in Shanghai. This was to be the last formal meeting of the CHSKH. All dominations in the Mainland came to an end in 1958.

The Diocese of Hong Kong and Macau

Bishop Gilbert Baker, who had worked many years in China, became the first elected bishop of the Diocese of Hong Kong and Macau in 1966, and the last Englishman to hold that office. He continued in the tradition of linking the church to education and social welfare, at a time when "Hong Kongers" were emerging with their own identity.³ Hong Kong is remembered for ordaining Florence Li Tim-oi as the first Anglican woman priest, but Bishop Baker ordained the second, third and fourth women to the Anglican priesthood as well, and all of them were "officially" approved in the Anglican Communion.⁴The church has in this way pioneered in the ministry of Anglican women.

In 1981, Kwong Kong-kit Peter was elected the first Chinese bishop of Hong Kong and Macau. He guided the church with a steady hand and a clear vision over the next twenty-six years. Bishop Kwong was practice-oriented, good at bringing people together for mission. He reorganized church policies, structures and finances. He also helped build relationships with the Chinese government, thus ensuring a smooth transition for church and society over 1997. During the time of "reform and openness" in China. Bishop Kwong worked closely with the Chinese Christian Three-Self Patriotic Movement Committee (TSPM) and the newly established China Christian Council (CCC), structural expressions of the re-merging church on the mainland. The "post-denominational" CCC was in some sense a successor body to the CHSKH, and other Chinese denominations on the mainland.

Establishment of the Province

The major achievement of Bishop Peter Kwong's bishopric was the creation of the Province of Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui. Early on, Bishop Kwong saw that a detached diocese, not operating under the constitution and canons of any province, was an anomaly. Although Hong Kong was part of the Council of The Churches of East Asia, together with other dioceses in the region, the Anglicans in Hong Kong needed a more formal institutional grounding. As Hong Kong was no longer under British administration, it would not be appropriate to become an extra-territorial diocese of Canterbury. And so, on 25 October, 1998, after seven years of planning, the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui was born. Bishop Kwong was elected the first Archbishop and Primate, working together with Bishop Thomas Soo Yee-po in the Diocese of Western Kowloon and Bishop Louis Tsui Tsan-sang in the Diocese of Eastern Kowloon to build up the Church.

Archbishop Peter Kwong retired in 2007. Bishop Paul Kwong of the Diocese of Hong Kong Island was then elected by the Electoral College to be the second Archbishop and Primate of the Province. Bishop Soo and Bishop Tsui subsequently retired in 2012 and 2014 respectively. Andrew Chan was elected as the second Diocesan Bishop of Western Kowloon. Timothy Kwok was elected as the second Diocesan Bishop of Eastern Kowloon.

As a province, initiatives have been taken in equipping the laity for mission, education, theological training, and social welfare. Significant growth was achieved over the last decades. The HKSKH is actively involved in the worldwide Anglican Communion, and with the Church on the mainland and other parts of Asia.

We thank God for all that has been achieved, but we are keenly aware of the serious challenges that lie ahead.

A Brief Timeline of the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui

Note: This brief overview of the history of the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui is adapted from Archbishop Paul Kong and the Revd Philip L. Wickeri, "Sheng Kung Hui: The Contextualization of Anglicanism in Hong Kong," a chapter in the Oxford Handbook of Anglican Studies (2011).

¹ The importance of the Chinese Christian tradition for the Sheng Kung Hui was summarized by HKSKH priest Shiu Keung Lee in The Cross and the Lotus (Hong Kong: The Christian Study Centre on Chinese Religion and Culture, 1971). For the legacy and the continuing influence of imperialism on the mission of the Church in former British colonies see Norman Etherington, ed., Missions and Empire (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008).

² See Ian T. Douglas and Kwok Pui-lan, eds., Beyond Colonial Anglicanism: The Anglican Communion in the Twenty-First Century (New York: Church Publishing, 2001). This volume has its origins in a conversation between Profs. Douglas and Kwok (who is from Hong Kong) on the return of Hong Kong to China in 1997. The characterization in the last part of this sentence is adapted from Paul Avis, "What is 'Anglicanism'?" in Stephen Sykes and John Booty, eds. The Study of Anglicanism (London and Philadelphia: SPCK and Fortress Press, 1988), p. 405.

³ See Stephen Tsang, A Modern History of Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2004), especially Chapter 13, "The Rise of Hong Kongers," pp. 180-197.

⁴ Jane Hsien Yuin Hwang and Joyce Bennett were ordained in Hong Kong in 1971, and Pauline Shek was ordained in 1973.