China, Christianity in

China, Christianity in. According to legend, St Thomas the Apostle preached in China. The Sigan-Fu stone shows that missionaries from the Church of the East reached China in the 7th cent.; Syriac Christianity survived there until the 14th cent. The first W. mission was that of John of Monte Corvino (c.1294); this was ended by the advent of the Ming dynasty in 1368. The famous mission of the Jesuits began in 1582. They succeeded in building up a Chinese Christian community, but their method of accommodation gave rise to controversy, and the subsequent assertion of Papal authority in the 18th cent. antagonized the Emperor. Persecution and imperial decrees banning Christianity followed.

The 19th-cent. missionary movement was faced with the isolationist policy of the Manchu dynasty. The first Protestant missionary, Robert Morrison, who arrived in Canton in 1807, was able to remain only because he was employed as a translator by the East India Company. In the period 1839–65 the Western powers by military action secured for themselves rights of residence and jurisdiction. Missionaries then came from all the main denominations in Europe and America; they founded churches, schools, and hospitals throughout the country. When the Communists came to power in 1949 Christian institutions were taken over by the State, many churches were closed, and the activities of missionaries were curtailed; most were withdrawn by 1952. The new rulers, wishing to sever links between the Chinese Church and the West, encouraged the organization among Chinese Christians of the ‘Three-Self Patriotic Movement’ (self-supporting, self-governing, self-propagating). In 1957 RCs were forced to break relations with Rome. In the Cultural Revolution (1966) all religion was virtually outlawed. In 1979 churches began to reopen and in the 1980s restrictions on religious activity were reduced. After the massacre in Beijing in 1989 a more restrictive atmosphere prevailed, but Christianity represented a dynamic force with some appeal.