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Chinese Orthodox Church

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The Chinese Orthodox Church was an autonomous Eastern Orthodox church in China. Before the Cultural Revolution it is estimated as having twenty thousand members. It is unclear whether anything of the church remains.

A mission from the Assyrian Church of the East arrived in China in 635, and is commemorated in the Nestorian Stele of Xi'an.

Eastern Orthodoxy arrived in China, via Siberia, in 1685. In that year, the Kangxi Emperor resettled the inhabitants of the Russian border towns he had captured in China. Maxim Leontiev, a priest who went with them, dedicated the first Eastern Orthodox church in Beijing. In the first century-and-a-half of its presence in China, the church did not attract a large following. It is said that in 1860 there were not more than 200 Orthodox in Beijing, including the descendants of the naturalized Russians.

In the second half of the 19th century, however, the Orthodox Church made bigger strides. The Spiritual Mission of the Russian Orthodox Church in Beijing was blessed with scholarly and religious clergy. Numerous translations into Chinese of religious publications were made.

The Boxer Rebellion of 1898-1900, an anti-Western and anti-missionary uprising in China, saw violent attacks on Chinese converts to Christianity. The Orthodox Chinese were among those put to the sword, and in June every year the 222 Chinese Orthodox, including Father Mitrophan, who died for their faith in 1900 are commemorated during the upheavals as remembered on the icon of the Holy Martyrs of China. In spite of the uprising, by 1902 there were 32 Orthodox churches in China with close to 6,000 adherents. The church also ran schools and orphanages.

106 Orthodox churches were opened in China by 1949. In general the parishioners of these churches were Russian refugees, and the Chinese part was about 10,000 persons. The "cultural revolution" destroyed the young Chinese Orthodox Church almost totally.

Through the prayers of the Holy Chinese Martyrs,

O Christ God, be merciful unto us and save us.

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