Northeastern China Bishop Joseph Wei Jingyi says he is looking forward to more dialogue between Catholics and Orthodox Christians following the consecration of a Russian Orthodox church in remote E’erguna. Bishop Wei Jingyi of Qiqihar in Heilongjiang province noted there has been little contact between the two Churches in the remote region, near the Russian border, UCA News reports.
He said he hopes this will change following the consecration of St Innocent of Irkutsk Church in the city, located in the Hulunbuir region, last month.
The current number of Russian Orthodox Christians in E’erguna is not known but their ancestors arrived here more than a century ago, the bishop said.
There are about 20 Han Chinese Catholics living in E’erguna without a church or resident priest, while about 7,000 Catholics live scattered in the 264,000-kilometer-square Hulunbuir region.
The Orthodox church, which comes under the Diocese of Chita and Transbaikal in Russia, is believed to be the first such church to be consecrated in mainland China in over 50 years. The St Innocent of Irkutsk Church is one of four Orthodox churches that enjoy official status in China.
Fr Mikhail Wang Quansheng, an elderly Chinese Orthodox priest from Shanghai, performed the consecration rites as the new church does not have a priest yet.
Orthodox Christians from the Hailar district of Hulunbuir, Harbin in Heilongjiang, Shanghai, Beijing and the ethnic Russian villages of Tryokhrechye, located near E’erguna, attended the consecration.
Orthodox Archpriest Dionisy Pozdnyaev, who is in charge of the Church of Sts Peter and Paul in Hong Kong, and Wang Yanming of China’s State Administration for Religious Affairs attended the ceremony and had a meeting afterward.
E’erguna was formerly called Labdarin or Labudalin. The original St Innocent Church was built in 1967. In 1999, a new church was constructed with funds from the Chinese government. However, it was not until 2008 that it received the long awaited iconostasis — the screen partitioning the sanctuary from the rest of the church — held by China’s customs department since 2000.
According to the Chinese Autonomous Orthodox Church, the Russian Orthodox Church arrived in China in 1685 but failed to attract many followers until the second half of the 19th century.
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