ENG-1967 — Page 291

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RELIGION AND CUSTOM

The fact that Chinese may follow one or other of these ways, or may combine them without any feeling of incongruity, has often made Christianity, with its exclusive claims, seem uncongenial to the Chinese spirit. Nevertheless Christianity is rooted deeply and growing rapidly in Hong Kong.

Its roots go back indeed to the earliest days of the Colony. St John's Cathedral was founded in 1842, and established as a Cathe- dral by Letters Patent from Queen Victoria in 1850. A representative of the London Missionary Society arrived at about the same time. St Andrew's Church, consecrated in October, 1906, celebrated its diamond jubilee last year. There is an annual increase of four per cent in communicant church membership. New churches and chapels in housing estates and satellite towns are constantly being built. It is estimated that there are now 261 churches and chapels in the Colony.

This year saw the retirement of the Right Rev Ronald Owen Hall, seventh Bishop of Hong Kong after an episcopate of 34 years. The succeeding Bishop, the Right Rev Gilbert Baker, MA, who worked in South China between 1934 and 1951, in what was then part of the Diocese, became in December, 1966, the first Bishop to be consecrated in St John's Cathedral.

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity was again the occasion for fellowship between the Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches. In addition to a joint meeting for prayer and exposition of a passage from the Bible held at the City Hall, combined services were held in churches in both Hong Kong and Kowloon.

While about 12 churches in the Colony hold services in English, the great majority of the congregations are Chinese speaking, mostly Cantonese. There are some churches using Kuo-yu (Mandarin). Christians in Hong Kong are notable church-goers. The major world denominations are represented in the Adventists, Anglicans, Baptists, Lutherans, Methodists and Pentecostals, while churches of a Presbyterian type are joined in the Church of Christ in China (the largest numerically of Chinese Protestant churches). There are, in addition, a number of undenominational churches.

In a community like that of Hong Kong, where problems of livelihood and development are acute, it is natural that the churches