HONG KONG ANNUAL REPORT, 1953
in Chinese. Its Cathedral, dedicated to St. John the Evangelist, was built in 1847 and established as a Cathedral Church by Letters Patent from Queen Victoria in 1850. In addition to its work in Hong Kong University, and in secondary and primary education, the Anglican Church has taken an active part in the affairs of Chung Chi College (a Christian College of post Secondary School Education in Arts and Science, and in Theology) and in the development of primary Education especially among the children of manual workers.
The English-speaking Free Churches are represented by the Methodists who have their own church on the Island, whereas the other denominations have established Union Churches on the Island and in Kowloon. More and more Chinese attend the services in these churches. The Union Church in Hong Kong plans to erect a new Church building to replace the one destroyed during the Japanese occupation.
The Chinese-speaking Free Churches continue to develop. The Chinese Methodist Church has expanded its educational and evangelistic activities and the Hong Kong district of the Kwangtung Synod of the Church of Christ in China has sixteen churches in the colony. Owing to the great number of Chinese Christians that have come to the colony from the mainland in recent years a large number of non-Cantonese speaking Chinese Churches have been established. The most prominent of these are the Swatow and Mandarin speaking Churches.
The Roman Catholic Church in Hong Kong was originally under the administration of a Missionary with the ecclesiastical title of Prefect Apostolic. In 1874, as a result of the increasing number of adherents to the Roman Catholic faith, a Bishop was appointed to the territory with the title of Vicar Apostolic, and in 1946 the status of the Church was raised to that of a Diocese, extending into China. There are twelve Roman
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