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The Holy Apostolic Catholic Church of China | Sino-Christianity
The Chinese ChurchThe Holy Apostolic Catholic |
 Cathedral of the Most Holy Mother of Christ |
Abbreviation | HACC |
Classification | Eastern Christianity |
Orientation | Sino-Christianity |
Polity | Episcopal |
Scripture | Holy Bible |
Theology | Sino-Christianity |
Governance | Holy Episcopal Synod |
Catholicos-Patriarch | Gheni II (Huo Xinya) |
Bishops | 1,377 |
Priests | 457,312 |
Parishes | 520,691 |
Dioceses | 1,183 |
Monasteries | 527 |
Convents | 192 |
Language | Chinese |
Liturgy | Sino-Syriac Rite |
Founders | |
Origin | June 1966 |
Members | 836,455,922 |
Separations | Ancient Syriac Church of China |
Catholicos-Patriarch Gheni II, pictured in 2016
Archbishop of Niagara, Christopher Duslaf with
the Archbishop of Paris, Pierre Balouse, at
the Cathedral of St. Shohret Bashi in Ottawa, Canada
The Chinese Church, formally known as the Holy Apostolic Catholic Church of China (Chinese: 中国圣公会), is an
Eastern Christian church and the largest of the Sino-Christian (or Bashist) churches. and is primarily centred in China. It primarily employs the Sino-Syriac Liturgy of Xi'an, a derivative of the Liturgy of Addai and Mari. The main spoken language of the Church is Chinese, however Syriac was restored for liturgical purposes following the Haidong Synod in 1921.The Chinese Church was first established as the Metropolitan Province of Beth Sinaye by Catholicos-Patriarch Sliba-zkha in the early 8th century AD, as a part of the Church of the East. After a steep decline beginning in the 9th century, the Church experienced a reformation and revival at the beginning of the 11th century under St. Shohret Bashi. He declared the church independent of the Church of the East, formally establishing the Holy Apostolic Catholic Church of China at the Council of Xi'an, held in 1028. The Decrees of the Council of Xi'an began with the Proclamation of the Chinese Church, which declared its separation from the Church of the East.
The reason for the Chinese Church's separation from the Church of the East was Bashi's theological disputes with the Ancient Church of the East. Bashism promoted doctrines such as panecclesiasticism and practises such as Confucian assimilationism. As Metropolitan of Beth Sinaye, he began to instruct new priests in his own theology and preach his own controversial beliefs. By 1014 the Church in China was publicly split between those loyal to Bashism and those loyal to Mesopotamia (Xuliyaren). When a number of Mesopotamian aligned bishops attempted to consecrate Zhou Changming as Metropolitan of Beth Sinaye in 1026, Bashi halted it and was able to convene a council for January 1028. By this time, the Xuliyaren were a small minority and had just eight representatives at the Council of Xi'an.
The Holy Apostolic Catholic Church is led by the Catholicos-Patriarch, currently Gheni II, who inherited the role upon his election to the position of Patriarch of Xi'an, the primary see of the Holy Apostolic Catholic Church. It is the state church of the Holy Empire of China.
The first recorded Christians in China were two Nestorian monks who preached while smuggling silkworm eggs to the Roman Empire. However, the first formal Christian mission to China was led by a Syriac monk known in Chinese as Alopen. This mission arrived in the Chinese capital of Chang'an in 635, during the reign of Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty. Taizong extended official tolerance to the mission and invited the Christians to translate their sacred works for the imperial library. This tolerance was followed by many of Taizong's successors, allowing the Church of the East to thrive in China for over 200 years. China became a metropolitan province of the Church of the East, under the name Beth Sinaye, in the first quarter of the 8th century. According to the 14th-century writer Abdisho bar Berika, the province was established by the patriarch Sliba-zkha (714–28). It is unlikely that there were many Christian communities in central China, and the only inland Chinese city south of the Yellow River where a Nestorian presence can be confirmed in the Tang dynasty is Chengdu. The first metropolitan for Tibet (now the Autonomous Province of Beth Tuptaye) was consecrated by Timothy I in 797. The Tang dynasty later began to persecute the Church in China, and by the end of the 10th century it was all but extinct, with an estimated following of just 35,000 and just twelve bishops.
Shohreht Bashi was elected Catholicos-Patriarch in 1023 following the death of his predecessor, Eliya V. With just eleven bishops remaining, he consecrated his student Ilham of Suzhou to take over his previous diocese and he began to prepare for his patriarchate. Bashi's first move was to establish a school at Xi'an, home of the patriarchal see but the least populated diocese of the Church. His objective was to spread the gospel in established locations before building new missions in other parts of China. After four years of continuous growth, the Church had around 50,000 laity and fifteen bishops. Despite the successful work in growing the Church, Bashi was not very popular with the other Nestorian bishops abroad for his sympathies towards Confucian and Taoist philosophy, as well as his controversial Panecclesiasticism.
(Council of Xi'an 1028 - independence)
(Five Dynasties and the Song)
(Yuan Dynasty, Karakorum Synod 1282)
(Birth of the Zhan Dynasty)
(The Great Synods: Yangzhou 1694, Chongqing 1723, Beijing 1755, )
(The 20th Century: Synods at Haidong 1921, Zhangye 1970)
The Chinese Church adheres to a Sino-Christian theology that is described as "Orthodox Bashist" or Sino-Syriac. The label "Orthodox Bashist" or Sino-Syriac is used to distinguish it from the various Sino-Christian churches not in communion with the HACC, primarily the protestant Neo-Bashists. In the Constitution of the Yangzhou Synod, Catholicos-Patriarch Xue Zhihao proclaimed the Seven Principles of the Church:
Apostolic, in that the Church maintains unbroken apostolic succession via the consecration of Bishops.
Catholic, in that the Church is a part of the Universal Body of Jesus Christ.
Orthodox, in that the Church accepts and affirms the (first two) Ecumenical Councils.
United, in that the Church is one and her members affirm all that it teaches.
Synodal, in that the bishops of the Church are equal and operate a synodal model of government.
Confessional, in that the Church affirms and adheres to the Sino-Syriac Confessions.
Chinese, in that the Church embraces and is shaped by Chinese culture.
While the first five are fairly straightforward for outsiders to understand, the sixth and seventh principles require more attention. The sixth principle is "Confessional", and notes that the "Holy Apostolic Catholic Church affirms and adheres to all that is contained in the Sino-Syriac Confessions, that is the authoritative and orthodox writings of Saint Shohret and his disciples Saints Ilham & Guoyi". The three are known as the Fathers of the Chinese Reformation, and select works they authored were compiled into the Sino-Syriac Confessions. The collection includes the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed and Apostles' Creeds, the Sinic Professions of Faith (Simple and Complete), the Tracts on True Doctrine, the Proclamation of the Chinese Church, Ilham's Apology of Independence, and Guoyi's catechism, among many other documents attributed to Saints Ilham and Guoyi.
The Tracts on True Doctrine were written between 1025 and 1033 by Shohret Bashi. The Tracts cover twenty-seven different topics on theology, and were divided into three categories: God and Man, the Holy Church, and the Sacraments. The Sinic Professions of Faith are two creeds that all Sino-Christians familiarise themselves with. The Simple Profession, or the Waihang Profession, is recited by lay people who are being confirmed into the Church, and at every celebration of the liturgy. The Complete Profession, or the Mushi Confession, is recited by those being ordained as priests, and affirmed once a year at Pentecost.
The seventh principle is that the Church is Chinese. This does not mean that the Church exclusively welcomes Chinese people, but that Chinese is the lingua franca of the Church and it is headquartered in China. Confucian and Taoist philosophy is taught extensively in HACC seminaries as something compatible with orthodox Christianity. This resembles the assimilation of Greco-Roman philosophy in the western Church.
On ecclesiology, the HACC does not teach that it alone is the "one true Church" as the Roman Catholic Church or Eastern Orthodox Church does. Instead, in the Bashist tradition, they teach a doctrine similar to Branch theory called Panecclesiasticism. Panecclesiasticism posits that all churches who maintain apostolic succession are a part of the greater Pan-Ecclesiastic Body of Christ, and all of these institutions teach the necessary truths for salvation. The Church has never issued a clarification on which denominations meet this requirement, though theologians have argued it likely includes the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern & Oriental Orthodox churches, the Nestorian churches, the Anglican Communion, and Old Catholics.
The Church Today
The HACC today is rather stagnant in size in China, but experiencing significant growth abroad. Seminaries have been established in all continents, providing a consistent source of priests for the expanding Church. The Church is active in almost 1200 dioceses globally. Most of these are within Asia, though there are 19 in North America and 37 in Europe. Thanks to the support of the Chinese government, the Church has been able to finance the construction of large numbers of churches, monasteries, and convents in diaspora communities abroad. The Church is experiencing a constant growth in the number of vocations, averaging around 9,100 new priests per year between 2010 and 2018. New bishops are consecrated yearly at Xi'an in an elaborate ceremony.
The Chinese Church has strong ecumenical relations with a number of different denominations. As of the Synod of Zhangye in 1970, there is full communion with the Anglican Communion and the Old Catholics. An ecumenical Understanding Agreement was signed between the HACC and the Roman Catholic Church in 1997, and conferences on ecumenical dialogue have been held with the Eastern Orthodox Church, most notably in 1994 and 2006.
There are a number of churches that have split off from the Holy Apostolic Catholic Church over the years. The most notable of these is the Ancient Syriac Church of China, founded by the Xuliyaren after the Council of Xi'an. As most laity had stuck with the HACC, the ASCC was smaller and operated just four dioceses compared to the ten operated by the HACC. The primary see of the Ancient Syriacs was located in Yanqi, where the Monastic-Cathedral of the Holy Virgin was located. Today, the Metropolitan (currently Xue XI) sits at Dihua in the same Metropolitan of Beth Sinaye. The ASCC is in full communion with the Assyrian Church of the East, and has approximately 14,762,000 members, of whom roughly three quarters reside in China. It has jurisdiction over China, Korea, and parts of Central Asia, operating 53 dioceses of which 44 are in China, two in Korea, and the rest in Central Asia.
The Reformed Apostolic Church of China is a Sino-Christian church that is part of the Anglican Communion. It was founded as the Church of Hong Kong during the early years of British administration, but became the RAC in 1847 as it began to expand into southern China. It has approximately ten million members located across the globe, primarily in the Colony of Hong Kong but also abroad in countries such as the United Kingdom and Australia. The presiding bishop of the RAC is Christopher Zhen, Bishop of Hong Kong.
The Catholic Sino-Christian Church is an Eastern Catholic denomination in communion with the Holy See. It was founded in 1874 by twelve HACC priests who were baptised into the Catholic Church by the Latin Archbishop of Beijing. Two of them were consecrated as bishops. It has roughly 22.5 million members, making it the largest Sino-Christian denomination other than the HACC, however more than half of them live outside of China. 44% of the CSC's members faithful reside in China, mostly in Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces, while roughly a quarter live in North America and a further 20% in Europe. The current Patriarch of the Catholic Sino-Christian Church is Shen Andrew Yong, who was elected in January 2021.
The Free Chinese Church, commonly known as just "The Free Church", is a Sino-Christian church that split off from the HACC in the 1820s. It is unknown exactly when it started, as it has the smallest number of followers out of all Sino-Christian denominations. It is estimated that just 360,000 people are aligned with the Free Chinese Church, which is currently headed by Presiding-Bishop Dai Hanying. The Free Church rejects the concept of a diocese, instead having an Episcopal Council comprised of 15 bishops who elect a Presiding-Bishop every five years. They operate two seminaries and over 350 churches in China, and have begun operations in North America where three churches exist in California.
