The Church of Christ in Japan is an existing religious denomination that has 13,102 members and 137 congregations, and is a member of the
World Communion of Reformed Churches
The World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) is the largest association of Calvinist churches in the world. It has 230 member denominations in 108 countries, together claiming an estimated 80 million people, thus being the fourth-largest Chris ...
.
It sponsors missionaries in
Korea
Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...
,
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
and
Singapore
Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...
.
History
The Church of Christ in Japan was founded by American missionaries in 1872. J.C. Presbyterians Hepburn, S. R. Brown and the Reformed J. H. Ballagh were among the founders, in
Yokohama
is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of To ...
. In 1877 the church unified with the Presbyterian Association. By the end of the 19th century membership was 10,500 and there were 72 congregations. In the following fifty years it was among Japan's largest churches. In 1941 the denomination became part of the
United Church of Christ in Japan
The United Church of Christ in Japan (UCCJ; ja, 日本基督教団 ''Nihon Kirisuto Kyōdan'', or ''Kyōdan'' for short) is the largest Protestant denomination in Japan. It is a union of thirty-three diverse Protestant denominations forcibly me ...
. In 1951, 39 congregations reconstructed themselves as the Church of Christ in Japan.
References
External links
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Members of the World Communion of Reformed Churches
Reformed denominations in Japan
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