RELIGION
307
number of dispensaries. Six orphanages and homes for blind girls, for the aged poor, and for wayward girls shelter a total of about 1,150 inmates. Welfare Centres, with resident staffs, are operating in the squatter areas, churches and schools being maintained in connexion with each. A mobile clinic, run by the Catholic Welfare Committee, visits different places each week and treats a large number of patients.
Many of the principal Missions have their Far Eastern administrative headquarters in the Colony.
There is a small Russian Orthodox congregation, divided into adherents who recognize the present Patriarch of Moscow and others who do not. The former have their own Church, founded in 1934. The latter, who have inter-communion with the Anglican Church, hold their services in the Church Hall of St. Andrew's Kowloon, and are known as the Orthodox Church.
Buddhist activities have expanded in recent years and the Buddhist community organizes free schools and medical centres. The school of Buddhism chiefly followed is the Mahayana. There are large Buddhist monasteries in the hills behind Tsuen Wan, at Castle Peak, Sha Tin, and in the western part of Lantao Island. Most of them depend for their upkeep on charitable gifts and income earned from tourists and visitors using their rest houses.
There are about 5,000 Chinese Muslims and about 1,500 non-Chinese Muslims, mostly Pakistanis and Indians. The first mosque was built in 1850 on the present mosque site in Shelley Street; the existing construction dates from 1915. A second mosque was built in 1896 in Nathan Road, Kowloon, but in 1902 was transferred to the care of the military authorities for use by Indian troops.
The Parsees were among the foreign communities which arrived with the British in 1841. In 1829 they had established a prayer-house and cemetery in Macau, and in 1852 they established their first cemetery in Hong Kong, in Happy