Eastern Orthodoxy in Taiwan

Eastern Orthodoxy arrived in Taiwan around 1895, the year the Qing Dynasty ceded the island to Japan. These first Orthodox believers were Japanese immigrants, who almost immediately began petitioning St. Nicholas (Kasatskin), Archbishop of Japan to send them a priest. In 1901, a Tokyo synod created the Christ the Savior Parish in Taiwan. Its first priest was Fr. Simeon (Okava or Yukava—spellings differ), followed (in 1911) by a Fr. Titus (Kariyama). Records indicate a Taiwan-based Orthodox population of 15 or 17 (in 1900), 29 (in 1901), and 44 (in 1903). The activity of the community was interrupted by the 1912 death of St. Nicholas of Japan, and largely ceased with the end of Japanese rule in 1945.

Sayama Dayroku, later Archbishop Nicholas of Ramensky (near Moscow), was born 1914 in Taihoku (Taipei).{{cite web|url=http://www.orthodox.cn/contemporary/sayama_en.htm|title=NIKOLAI (SAYAMA)|website=www.orthodox.cn}}{{cite web|url=http://www.orthodox.cn/news/20080826nikolaisayama_en.htm|title=The oldest bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church MP has died.|website=www.orthodox.cn}}

In 1949, some 5000 Russians arrived from China (e.g. Shanghai, Harbin, Xinjiang) in the wake of the Chinese Civil War, and began gathering in Taipei's Cafe Astoria. Mention is made of a Korean War-era funeral led by Bishop (later Archbishop) [http://www.svots.edu/content/archbishop-john-shahovskoy John (Shahovskoy)] of San Francisco, then a U.S. army chaplain en route from Korea to the USA. Archbishop Ireney (Bekish) of Tokyo (later New York) made annual visits to Taipei between 1957 and 1959, celebrating divine liturgy in a private home, under the name of the Church of the Forerunner. In 1960 he ceded these duties to an American military chaplain, Fr. Nikolay Kirilyuk. 1965 saw a visit by Metropolitan Vladimir (Sagosky) of Japan (later San Francisco), American military chaplain Archpriest Peter Zurnovich, and Fr. Kirill Arihara. The number of Orthodox faithful in Taiwan has been variously estimated at 50 (in 1960), 100 (in 1958), and 200 (in 1965).{{cite web|url=http://www.orthodox.cn/localchurch/taiwan/1958-1959ireney_en.htm|title=Archbishop Ireney's visits to Taiwan|website=www.orthodox.cn}}{{cite web|url=http://orthodox.cn/localchurch/taiwan/glebrar_en.htm|title=Historical Notes about Orthodox Church Life in Taiwan during 50-60 years of 20 cent.|website=orthodox.cn}}{{cite web|url=http://www.orthodox.cn/localchurch/taiwan/19650120vladimir_en.htm|title=Visiting Taiwan's Faithful|website=www.orthodox.cn}} The Russian community's most famous member, Chiang Ching-kuo's Belarusian-born wife Chiang Fang-liang (née Faina Ipat'evna Vakhreva), did not attend services (and may have nominally affiliated with her husband's Methodism).

Sources differ as to whether this predominantly Russian church had any contact with the earlier wave of Japanese-era believers. By the 1970s the church had again dwindled into inactivity, in part because of a canonical rule requiring the closure of any parish which goes more than fifty years without a resident priest.

But nevertheless, the Taiwanese Orthodox Church was re-established by a Greek hieromonk, Fr. Jonah (Mourtos) of Osiou Gregoriou monastery (Mount Athos) in the year of 2001 AD under the auspices of the Metropolitan of South Asia under the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in Istanbul. The attendants are mainly Russian and other Slavic people but gradually, more and more Taiwanese locals are coming to Orthodoxy.

The Holy and Sacred Synod of Constantinople founded also the new Orthodox Metropolitanate of Hong Kong and South East Asia in November 1996, with jurisdiction over: Hong Kong, Macao, China, Taiwan, Mongolia, Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, and also Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, East Timor, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Afghanistan.{{cite web|url=http://www.omhksea.org/about/|title=About us : OMHKSEA|publisher=}}{{sfn|Kiminas|2009|pp=146}}

In 2012, Archbishop Mark of Yegorievsk, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church's Office for Institutions Abroad, reactivated the parish of Christ the Savior in Taipei under the leadership of a Russo-Canadian priest from Canada, Fr. Kirill (Shkarbul). The parish celebrates the services in a mixture of Chinese, English, and Slavonic, with parishioners ranging from Russian, American, to Taiwanese.{{Cite news |url=https://orthodoxchurch.tw/%e5%8f%b0%e7%81%a3%e6%95%99%e6%9c%83/%e5%8f%b0%e7%81%a3%e5%9f%ba%e7%9d%a3%e6%ad%a3%e6%95%99%e6%9c%83%e7%b0%a1%e5%8f%b2/|title=台灣基督正教會簡史 |publisher=台灣基督正教會 |year=2013}}

• Religion in Taiwan
• Christianity in Taiwan
• Chinese Orthodox Church
• Japanese Orthodox Church

{{reflist}}

• {{Cite book |last=Kiminas |first=Demetrius |title=The Ecumenical Patriarchate: A History of Its Metropolitanates with Annotated Hierarch Catalogs |year=2009 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QLWqXrW2X-8C |publisher=Wildside Press LLC |isbn=9781434458766}}

• [http://www.omhksea.org Official Site - Orthodox Metropolitanate of Hong Kong and Southeast Asia]
• [http://orthodox.cn/localchurch/taiwan/glebrar_en.htm Gleb Rar, "Historical Notes about Orthodox Church Life in Taiwan during 50-60 years of 20 cent."]
• [http://www.orthodox.cn/localchurch/taiwan/index_en.html Japanese-era Churches in Taiwan (photos and links)]
• [http://theological.asia/ Orthodox Church in Taiwan (Constantinople Patriarchate)(Chinese)]
• [http://orthodoxchurch.tw/ Orthodox Church in Taiwan (Moscow Patriarchate)(Chinese)]
• [http://orthodoxchurch.com.tw/ Orthodox Church in Taiwan (Moscow Patriarchate)(Russian)]
• [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ionas-mourtos/30/512/893 Fr. Jonah's LinkedIn entry]
• [http://www.burningjoy.net/ Seraphim William Davidson's website]
• [http://mx.nthu.edu.tw/~katchen Johanna E. Katchen's website]
• [https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=553900138004240&set=a.553892188005035.1073741830.530595883667999&type=3&theater Moscow-affiliated church's Facebook page]

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Category:Christianity in Taiwan