Gospel Church ( zh, t=福音堂, s=福音堂, w=Fu2-yin1 tʽang2, p=Fúyīn táng) is a

Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...

church situated on Dabei Upper 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 ...

Guanghan Guanghan ( zh, s=广汉, t=廣漢, p=Guǎnghàn; formerly known as Hanchow) is a county-level city under the administration of Deyang in Sichuan province, southwest China, and only from Chengdu. The predominant industries are tourism, pharmaceut ...

Deyang Deyang () is a prefecture-level city of Sichuan province, China. Deyang is a largely industrial city, with companies such as China National Erzhong Group and Dongfang Electric having major operations there. The city is rich in history, with the ...

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 the ...

. Founded in 1902, it was formerly an Anglican church in the West Szechwan Diocese of the Church in China. In 2003, a new church was built on Shuyuan Street, and renamed Grace Church ( zh, t=天恩堂, s=天恩堂, w=Tʽien1-ên1 tʽang2, p=Tiān'ēn táng, l=Heavenly Grace Church, links=no).

History

Gospel Church was founded by a

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...

pastor in 1902, belonging to the Diocese of West Szechwan. It is built in local architectural style, with a pseudo-Gothic door topped by a cross. In 1929,

Vyvyan Donnithorne The Venerable Vyvyan Henry Donnithorne, MC, MA (8 January 1886 – 12 December 1968) was Archdeacon of Western Szechwan from 1935 to 1949. Biography Vyvyan Donnithorne was of Cornish descent. He was educated at Christ's Hospital, Clare Col ...

(Chinese name: ), a member of the

Church Missionary Society The Church Mission Society (CMS), formerly known as the Church Missionary Society, is a British mission society working with the Christians around the world. Founded in 1799, CMS has attracted over nine thousand men and women to serve as mission ...

in China, together with his wife, arrived in Guanghan (then known as Hanchow). He served as pastor of the Gospel Church until 1949, before being transferred to the Canary Islands, Spain. During his stay in Hanchow, he became a member of the West China Border Research Society, and one of the key figures in the discovery of the archaeological site now known as

Sanxingdui Sanxingdui () is an archaeological site and a major Bronze Age culture in modern Guanghan, Sichuan, China. Largely discovered in 1986, following a preliminary finding in 1927, archaeologists excavated artifacts that radiocarbon dating placed in ...

. 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 Gospel Church into the communist-established Three-Self Patriotic Church. Consecration of a new church took place in 2003. Unlike the original church, the new building was designed in an entirely

Modernist Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

style.

References

{{coord missing, Sichuan 20th-century Anglican church buildings in China Churches completed in the 1900s Churches completed in the 2000s

Rebuilt churches Modernist architecture Buildings and structures in Deyang Guanghan

History

See also

References