Wuxi Christian Church ( zh, s=无锡市基督教堂, p=Wúxīshì Jīdūjiàotáng), formerly Holy Cross Church ( zh, t=聖十字堂, p=Shèng shízì táng), is a

Protestant church 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 ...

located in

Liangxi District Liangxi District () is one of five urban districts and the main district of Wuxi, Jiangsu province, China. It was created in 2015 by the merger of the three former districts of Chong'an District, Nanchang District, and Beitang District. The prim ...

Wuxi Wuxi (, ) is a city in southern Jiangsu province, eastern China, by car to the northwest of downtown Shanghai, between Changzhou and Suzhou. In 2017 it had a population of 3,542,319, with 6,553,000 living in the entire prefecture-level city ar ...

Jiangsu Jiangsu (; ; pinyin: Jiāngsū, Postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Kiangsu or Chiangsu) is an Eastern China, eastern coastal Provinces of the People's Republic of China, province of the China, People's Republic of China. It is o ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

History

In 1901,

American Episcopal Church The Episcopal Church, based in the United States with additional dioceses elsewhere, is a member church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. It is a mainline Protestant denomination and is divided into nine provinces. The presiding bishop of ...

Pastor Rev. Cameron Farquhar McRae (Mai Ganlin, ) and Zhu Baoyuan (), a Chinese staff of the Episcopal Church, introduced Protestantism to Wuxi and founded the Anglican Church of Wuxi later. Preacher Mu Gaowen () bought 26 acres of land here in 1908 to build a church. In 1915 they received a large donation from an American believer and enlarged the church. In 1958 it was renamed "Wuxi Christian Church". During the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goal ...

, it was used as school classrooms. After the

3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party The 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party was a pivotal meeting of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party held in Beijing, China, from December 18 to December 22, 1978. The conference ma ...

, according to a policy of some

religious freedom Freedom of religion or religious liberty is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance. It also includes the freedom ...

, the church was officially reopened to the public in 1980. In January 1994 it was designated as a municipal level cultural relic preservation unit by the local government. The church was inscribed to the Cultural Relics Protection Units List in Jiangsu in March 2019.

History

Gallery

References

Further reading