At the end of the nineteenth century, Anglican missionaries in China envisaged the creation of a self-supporting, self-governing and self-propagating church, otherwise known as the ‘Three-Self Church’. The establishment of an independent indigenous church had always been hailed as the ultimate goal of missions.Footnote ¹ Within the Anglican tradition of order and legality, this also meant setting up canons that would clearly define who did what and why within the church and would apply essential principles of the Christian faith in practical, measurable terms.Footnote ² In the South China diocese, three distinct constitutions were issued in 1913, 1929 and 1948 to achieve these ends. Whilst they appear to show linear development towards the Three-Self Church, the historical context underlying this process of constitutional change reveals a journey of rupture and realignment. Significant changes in both the Chinese political system and world Christendom stalled the steady development imagined by mission organizations and Church of England authorities. Whilst existing historiography has considered how individual missions and churches in China were affected in this age of extremes, the legal aspect remains somewhat neglected.Footnote ³

Up to 1912, the constitutional development of the Anglican missions in China had been a low priority. Since 1845, missionaries had been sent independently from the Church of England, the Protestant Episcopal Church (PEC) in the USA and the Anglican Church in Canada. In the ensuing fifty years, there was sporadic church growth but no concerted legal action across China, since no unifying legislative body existed. Brian Stanley rightly notes that the spirit of the age encouraged a joint effort towards the evangelization of the world, as opposed to the systematic pursuit of inter-church unity.Footnote ⁴ No one contemplated constituting a national Anglican Church in China because so much else was yet to be done.Footnote ⁵

The first significant act of unity came in 1897, when the six Anglican missionary bishops in China and Korea convened to discuss shared problems, such as Chinese terms for ministers or defining the acceptable limits of Christian marriage in relation to Chinese wedding customs.Footnote ⁶ The more important reason for their meeting, however, as indicated in a letter circulated in their respective dioceses, was a shared commitment ‘to manifest the real unity of the Anglican Communion’ in light of the need to overcome the self-perceived fragmentation of their mission work.Footnote ⁷ The bishops reconvened in 1899 and again in 1903, when they agreed on a shared structure for divine worship and established a standing committee; this consisted of two bishops together with an external secretary, and decided on similar matters during intervals between meetings.Footnote ⁸ At this point, the bishops had been shaken by the 1900 Boxer uprising and saw the growing need to stand united. So great was the damage that missionary clergy across the dioceses of Victoria (Hong Kong), North China and Shantung (Shandong) issued a joint letter to the bishops’ conference, pressing for the formation of an Anglican synod for the whole of China.Footnote ⁹ In their opinion, as a divided force Anglicanism would fail to influence the Chinese nation.Footnote ¹⁰ Consequently, the 1907 conference resulted in a definite resolution about organizing a general synod to handle common policy more effectively, to provide authoritative decisions and to offer counsel to all.Footnote ¹¹ On 26 April 1912, riding on the wave of the Edinburgh World Missionary Conference of 1910, the bishops and diocesan representatives met together in Shanghai to constitute the Chinese Anglican Church (Chung Hua Sheng Kung Hui; CHSKH).

Whilst the precise canons of the constitution remained a work in progress, the path for developing the CHSKH was clear. As had been the case in preceding decades, Anglican missionaries generally expected to establish ecclesiastical infrastructure themselves and only then step back from the indigenous church. However, Chinese involvement was slow to develop. In the late nineteenth century, the Church Missionary Society (CMS) exercised great caution in moving towards indigenous church leadership in the light of the memory of the tensions between missionary authority and Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther's episcopal authority in the Niger mission, as well as prevalent views about racial hierarchy.Footnote ¹² The report of the Committee on Foreign Missions at the Lambeth Conference of 1908 adopted the same approach for all Anglican missions worldwide. The bishops recommended that foreign missionaries should be the ones to ‘build up an autonomous and native Church’ and they should ‘retire when the work is done’.Footnote ¹³ In the eyes of Anglican church leaders, indigenous Christians were not yet qualified to govern their own church; important questions ought to be resolved by the missionaries and home authorities. For example, the division of the diocese of Victoria (Hong Kong), which later became the South China diocese, was settled entirely between Prebendary H. E. Fox (honorary secretary of the CMS), the senior clergyman in the field, and Archbishop Randall Davidson (1903–28), without any proper consultation with Chinese church members. The diocese would have been divided along parallels of latitude had it not been for an intervention by Archdeacon Banister, an experienced missionary, whose intimate knowledge of the geographical and linguistic boundaries in the area led him to suggest that the Xi River would be a better line of division.Footnote ¹⁴ However, it was this very same Banister who wrote to Davidson seven years later, endorsing the view of the CHSKH General Synod's Committee on Church Extension that ‘in regard to a Chinese Bishop, that while setting before the Chinese Church this ideal, we should go slow’.Footnote ¹⁵

One of the first acts of the newly established CHSKH General Synod was to organize a missionary district in Shensi (Shaanxi) province in 1915, which up to that point had remained untouched by missionary societies. This was a key step for the Chinese church, for the mission was to be led by Chinese clergy and supported only by Chinese donations. Nonetheless, a certain caution regarding devolution was evident in that Bishop Norris of North China was to play a supervisory and jurisdictional role in Shensi until the time came to consecrate a Chinese bishop.Footnote ¹⁶ Another example of the desire to ‘go slow’ was the case of the first Chinese candidate for the episcopate, T. S. Sing (Shen Tsai-sheng), who had been suggested in 1918 by Bishop Molony of Chekiang (Zhejiang). When the proposal was brought to Archbishop Davidson, he thought that a Chinese episcopacy could not yet be realized, ‘pending the creation of provincial organization in China for the Anglican Church’. The Chinese church would first need its own creeds, articulation of canonical obedience and method of election in order for indigenous bishops to be integrated systematically into the worldwide Anglican Communion. Whilst Sing was nevertheless consecrated, it was understood to be an extraordinary measure, allowed only because Sing was an outstanding candidate. Davidson, together with many of his contemporaries, reckoned that the church's canonical structure had to be developed over time.Footnote ¹⁷ The Revd Frederick Baylis, CMS Secretary for Africa and later for the Far East, wrote in a confidential memorandum about ‘native episcopates’ that, whilst ‘native bishops’ were the ultimate goal, it was important first to equip candidates to have ‘a fairly good understanding of what … to do, instead of having so very much of it yet to evolve out of the unknown’. Provincial organization and proper doctrine and discipline were yet to be become established. Consequently, Chinese candidates for the episcopacy were at best only ‘nearly ready’.Footnote ¹⁸

It is in this light that the approval of the CHSKH Canons and Constitutions of the Diocese of Victoria Hong Kong in December 1913 must be understood. The goal of the constitution was to establish a triennial synod that brought clergy and lay representatives together in order ‘to take counsel in matters that concern the welfare and progress of the CHSKH’. With only four canons regulating the basic structure of the new church, the rules and details were to be hammered out over time. The expectation was that further canons would evolve organically over the years to come as missionaries continued to educate indigenous leaders.Footnote ¹⁹ However, even by 1920, there was a slowness to the whole process. In August that year, Bishop Duppuy of South China (1920–32) wrote to the CMS Parent Committee requesting permission to constitute a Chinese Church Council, citing Resolution 34 of the 1920 Lambeth Conference, which supported the drive towards indigenous church government. He received a firm rebuttal in which Baylis asserted that it was still ‘the early days’ of the mission and that there was still ‘no Church body in existence competent to take over the duties and powers referred to’.Footnote ²⁰ At the Lambeth Conference itself, the missionary bishops from China had inquired about the possibility of achieving provincial status for the CHSKH. However, the discussion quickly ground to a halt when major obstacles were highlighted, such as the missionary bishops' also owing allegiance to their home church or the missions' being financially dependent on home societies.Footnote ²¹

Throughout the previous decade, even leading figures of the CHSKH had preferred to ‘go slow’, as revealed by their nationwide monthly periodical, Zhonghua Shenggonghui Bao (中華聖公會報, The Chinese Churchman). In 1914, for instance, Huang Dixin, a church member from Suzhou, published an article about how, although there were thousands of Chinese Christians with some degree of self-support and self-government, the vast majority of Chinese churches were dependent on foreign financial support.Footnote ²² In sum, the decade before and after the formation of the CHSKH in 1912 saw a general drive towards the Three-Self Church, but it was a hesitant and slow drive. CMS and Church of England authorities thought it best not to rush into creating a new church, since it would take more time and education to equip indigenous leadership adequately. Nonetheless, an intimation of the fiery Chinese zeal of the next two decades came as early as 1913 when Chinese members took the initiative and asked Bishop Lander of South China (1907–20) to establish a diocesan synod, rather than waiting for him to initiate one.Footnote ²³

When the Qing empire was overthrown in 1911, China descended into chaos as the newly formed Xinhai republic failed to stop provincial governors fighting amongst each another for dominance. Many supported the nationalist movement as a means of recreating unity and overcoming the confusion across China. In a development exacerbated by the May Fourth Movement and the 1925 Shanghai massacre, foreign imperialism became the scapegoat for China's problems.Footnote ²⁴ This sentiment spilled over into parts of the Chinese church. For example, articles in Shenggonghui Bao switched from explaining the necessity of foreign support to suggesting how the CHSKH could move beyond it. In 1921, an article by Zhu Zhezhi of Zhejiang diocese called for the CHSKH to develop its own new missionary districts without overdependence on the missionary societies and, in so doing, to instil the Three-Self spirit. Given the changes happening around the world and the founding of the Republic of China, Zhu then explained the goal of autonomy before listing out the necessary steps for the CHSKH to reach independence, such as stronger internal organization and greater unity between the dioceses, which by this time numbered eleven.Footnote ²⁵ In 1927, T. Z. Koo (Gu Ziren), secretary of the Young Men's Christian Association Student Department, issued a memorandum to foreign church leaders explaining why the Chinese church had to change. In the current political climate, the church was widely perceived as a foreign organization, an instrument of capitalism, opposed to progress and filled with hypocrisy.Footnote ²⁶ It was necessary to defend the church against such accusations by demonstrating how the faith was authentically Chinese and how Christian living could make positive contributions to society through healthcare and education. For example, the National Christian Council of China, an interdenominational organization formed in 1922 to coordinate mission work, implemented the Five Year Movement in 1930; this called on churches to reemphasize the benefits of Christian living and deepen knowledge about Christ.Footnote ²⁷ Whilst there were many outcomes and initiatives in this inter-war period, two stand out with regard to constituting the CHSKH: granting the CHSKH full autonomy and consecrating Chinese bishops. In both issues, there was tension between what Chinese Christians sought and what home authorities regarded as a deviation from the original plan of gradual constitutional development.

To grant the CHSKH full autonomy in its constitution would demonstrate that it was no crony of imperialism. As early as 1920, the CHSKH bishops had petitioned Archbishop Davidson for full recognition of ‘the authoritative Council of an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion’.Footnote ²⁸ Not much action was taken in response, and it was not until 1921 that the CHSKH General Synod began to draw up canons to establish its own authority, including metropolitan oversight, a method of electing bishops and a system of clerical discipline.Footnote ²⁹ Throughout the 1920s, the Church of Christ in China, a newly formed coalition of churches consisting primarily of Presbyterians and Congregationalists, wrote repeatedly to the Anglican mission in South China about the need for autonomy. In 1925, they emphasized that spiritual sovereignty was essential for the Chinese church, because ‘neither the Chinese Christians nor the foreign missionaries can be satisfied with anything less than this’.Footnote ³⁰ No direct result came from their request, for they did not possess authority over the CHSKH; nor were the Anglican mission boards particularly interested in their proposal. Bishop Frank Norris of North China wrote to Archbishop Davidson again in 1928 to request formal recognition. Unlike in 1921, there was now greater clarity about the terms and conditions of recognition, namely, the right of the CHSKH General Synod to proceed under its own canons and standing orders, and that CHSKH bishops should no longer be seen as suffragans of Canterbury, North America or Canada, but as bishops of the Chinese province.Footnote ³¹ Davidson, however, was reluctant to take action until the PEC in the USA had moved.Footnote ³² Bishop Norris became exasperated when he realized the following month that the PEC was in fact waiting for Canterbury, while Canada was waiting for both.Footnote ³³

Ultimately, unilateral arrangements were made through international cooperation and communication as Davidson's successor, Archbishop Cosmo Lang (1928–42), confirmed that CHSKH autonomy would be confirmed by an official resolution at the forthcoming 1930 Lambeth Conference. Lang explained to the bishop of Hankow, Logan H. Roots, that he knew no other way of issuing a formal announcement. He was concerned that using alternative channels would be seen as overstepping his jurisdiction as archbishop of Canterbury. Speaking on behalf of the PEC and the Anglican Church in Canada would imply that he was somehow superior to the presiding bishops in America and Canada. He thought it best not to set up any messy precedents for announcements involving other autonomous provinces.Footnote ³⁴ This entire episode reveals that there was no single body that could legally speak for all, and the joint resolution was an unprecedented development in the Anglican Communion. The very process of recognizing the autonomy of the CHSKH reveals the contrasting approaches between the Chinese Christians and the mission boards. The former pushed forcefully for the recognition of autonomy within a politically heated environment, whereas the latter moved slowly to work out how to establish legality and procedure in uncharted waters.

This tension is even clearer in the question of appointing Chinese bishops. In the South China diocese, discussions began between foreign and Chinese clergy in the late 1920s on the appointment of a Chinese assistant bishop. At the 1928 diocesan synod, the Revd Percy Jenkins, a seasoned missionary based in Canton who was all too aware of how financial constraints hindered idealism, wondered if the assistant bishop could be a foreigner since there was such a drastic shortage of Chinese clergy. The Revd Lee Kau-yan (Li Qiu'en) virtually ignored this point since the unanimous wish within the Chinese church was to see a Chinese assistant bishop as a sign of the times.Footnote ³⁵ At the 1929 diocesan standing committee meeting, Chinese representatives reasoned that appointing a Chinese bishop would encourage more young men to study for the ministry, avoid misunderstandings with non-Christians and ‘stir up the spirit of a self-supporting Church’.Footnote ³⁶ The problem, however, was exactly how to appoint a Chinese bishop, let alone a CHSKH bishop, since historically bishops had been sent as missionary bishops and there was no canonically defined electoral process.

In 1933 a turbulent exchange of correspondence between Bishop Norris and Archbishop Lang sought to clarify the precise procedure. The key question was whether the final election and appointment of bishops should be handled by Canterbury or by the chair of the CHSKH house of bishops.Footnote ³⁷ Whilst Archbishop Lang in July 1933 gave consent for future appointments to follow the recently revised self-governing canons of the CHSKH which placed the power to appoint, elect and consecrate bishops with the general synod, just a month later he reversed his stance. This happened after his consultations with the Revd W. Wilson Cash, the CMS general secretary, who thought that the CHSKH was ‘not really quite ready for complete autonomy as an independent Province’. Wilson Cash believed that ‘a certain section of the Chinese … are more Nationalistic than Christian … and if given a free hand, might act in such a way as to sever themselves from the rest of the Anglican Communion’.Footnote ³⁸ The long shadow of the fundamentalist controversy of 1922 had caused him to act with caution, for he wished to avoid defining the position of the CMS in a way that would cause schism.Footnote ³⁹ After careful consideration, Lang chose to reserve the right to elect and appoint those bishops whose episcopal stipends were provided by the CMS, according to a procedure subsequently adopted by a CHSKH standing order of 1924: this conferred the right of election and appointment of a bishop on the church that provided the bishop's stipend.Footnote ⁴⁰ However, this effectively applied to all CHSKH bishops, for all were funded by mission boards. Norris could do nothing but accept the decision with ‘some measure of disappointment’.Footnote ⁴¹

The following year, Bishop T. K. Shen (Shen Tzü-kao) was elected as the first Chinese diocesan bishop for Shensi missionary diocese, but only after extensive voluntary fundraising across the other eleven dioceses and from supportive Christian businessmen in Nanking.Footnote ⁴² In South China, Archdeacon Mok Shau-tsang (Mo Shou-tseng) was elected assistant bishop in April 1933, but the requirement for an endowment fund meant that he had to wait until 1935 for his consecration.Footnote ⁴³ Although the Chinese sought to establish the Chinese church quickly by appointing Chinese bishops, church authorities in England and America proceeded gingerly, for they saw the legal implications in a more global context and were particularly concerned with the potential risk of indigenous bishops causing schism. The CHSKH missionary bishops continued to sit uneasily between the Chinese clergy and Western church authorities.

The 1920s and 1930s are best summed up by the weary words of Bishop Duppuy at the 1929 diocesan synod. Tired by the confusion and beset with climate-induced health problems, Duppuy began the bishop's charge by quoting the famous last words of Cecil Rhodes: ‘So little done, so much to do’. As a missionary bishop, he saw both the urgency and vastness of ‘shifting the weight of responsibility from the Mission to the Chinese Church’. At the same time, he could appreciate why the CMS and Church of England were restrained in taking steps towards full autonomy.Footnote ⁴⁴ Duppuy tried to wrestle his way to a point somewhere in between through the 1929 constitution, which simultaneously reflected the unanimous desire for change and the muddled relationship of church, mission and metropolitan. The shared drive for change is illustrated in the context of the new canon providing for annual synods, which replaced a previous canon which had established triennial synods. Whilst this measure was first initiated by Chinese clergy through an amendment in 1926, it was the British missionary clergy who suggested going further by incorporating it into a completely new constitution.Footnote ⁴⁵ Equally, the contrast between Chinese and foreign clergy is revealed in their attitudes towards the newly-formed diocesan board of missions, a distinctive feature of the 1929 constitution. To the Chinese, the board was an unprecedented measure in empowering them, since they would receive an opportunity to administer a significant portion of the CMS grants and to direct missionary staff, both Chinese and foreign. Yet to the mother church, the board was a compromise, for its decisions were ultimately subject to the approval of the diocesan standing committee, which was in turn under the ever watchful eye of the CMS Parent Committee in London.Footnote ⁴⁶

The constitutional stalemate came to an end during the Second World War. The relationship between the CHSKH and Church of England was thrust into a new stage of development as a result of generational change and wartime experience. In 1942, Lang's successor, Archbishop William Temple (1942–4), drafted a memorandum about the CHSKH which acknowledged that the time for change had come: ‘It is evident that a stage has been reached when the relations between the Church in China and the Churches in England and USA call for reconsideration’. He suggested that in future CHSKH bishops should not have to make an oath of obedience to Canterbury or the presiding bishop of the PEC, nor should CHSKH bishops be selected by the primates of these jurisdictions. It was time for the church to be ‘genuinely Chinese and free from all kind of tutelage’.Footnote ⁴⁷ Temple's memorandum was sent to leading voices in the Church of England, who largely agreed with him. Gurney Barclay, Far East secretary of the CMS, was ‘wholehearted in agreement’.Footnote ⁴⁸ Bishop Hall (1932–66), Duppuy's successor in South China, praised the independence and initiative of Chinese Christians he observed while in Central China during the war. For Hall, sections of the church ‘had begun to stand on their own feet’.Footnote ⁴⁹ Bishop John Dauglish of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, however, still thought the CHSKH was yet to reach this stage although, as a member of the old guard, his view was now the exception rather than the norm.Footnote ⁵⁰ The overall mood and atmosphere were shifting. Max Warren, the CMS general secretary, observed that many of their younger missionaries around the world displayed great willingness to learn the local languages and interact with indigenous cultures, and commented that their view of how the missionary should relate to indigenous cultures was different from earlier generations, who had seen missionaries as slightly more detached.Footnote ⁵¹

The more significant reason behind this change was that the CHSKH had proved itself during the war. As Warren put it, it had passed through a time of testing. Despite suffering, evacuation, fighting, famine, disease, death, a dearth of younger clergy, precarious finances and a provincial organization that was slow to develop, they were pressing on.Footnote ⁵² Harry Wittenbach, the CMS East Asia secretary, used the metaphor of a faulty but functioning bus in Canton to describe the CHSKH: ‘Travelling over the war-scarred roads they soon become battered and worn. Not an instrument on the dashboard works. The mudguards shake loose. The springs break. They are tied together with bits of string and wire. But they keep going. That is China.’Footnote ⁵³ The CHSKH house of bishops had displayed striking resilience in 1943 when it convened without the usual support from missionary organizations, which had been cut off after 1937, following the Japanese occupation. They had at that meeting compiled a memorandum to be taken by Assistant Bishop Andrew Y. Y. Tsu (Zhu You-yu) of South China to America and England in 1944 which explained their revised approach to the mission-church relationship.Footnote ⁵⁴ The document detailed how, although the CHSKH was grateful for the security and fellowship offered by missionary societies in the past, they believed that now ‘this great diversity of godfathers and godmothers may prove a source of weakness’.Footnote ⁵⁵ It was unhelpful that different mission boards ran the dioceses (now thirteen in number) differently, creating great inequality in financial support as well as disparity in ministry focus.Footnote ⁵⁶ It would be better to coordinate church work in China through a new non-missionary central authority.Footnote ⁵⁷

Moreover, there was a growing sense that the missionary enterprise could no longer be the same as before the war, with impending decolonization and a new world order. Following his 1947 trip to the International Missionary Council conference and the CHSKH general synod, Warren shared a report with the CMS executive committee identifying what he considered as fundamental post-war changes that compelled the CMS to change its ways. To Warren, British ‘imperium’ was no longer operative and colonial law could no longer be relied upon. After the war, the church could not depend on extra-territorial missionary privileges as it had done over the past century. The best way forward was to empower the indigenous churches to confront the two incoming spectres of political communism and American ‘big business imperialism’ after decolonization, as well as handle the inherited church divisions between ‘the Fundamentalist and the Liberal schools’.Footnote ⁵⁸ This unequivocal call to devolve authority to indigenous leaders was echoed at the 1948 Lambeth Conference in which Resolutions 6 to 8 declared that the Anglican Communion was in full agreement with the equality of all people regardless of race and colour.Footnote ⁵⁹

On behalf of the Church of England, Archbishop Temple assured Bishop Tsu in person that he saw no difficulty in agreeing to the suggested amendments to the constitution of the CHSKH. Tsu invited Temple to visit China in the near future, to which Temple replied that it would be his personal pleasure, a promise which was not fulfilled due to his death in October 1944.Footnote ⁶⁰ Temple's successor, Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher, conveyed a message of Christian fellowship to the 1947 CHSKH general synod, commending them ‘to go ever forward in the power of the Holy Spirit’.Footnote ⁶¹ With the blessings and support of the worldwide Anglican Communion, the general synod swiftly approved the constitutional changes. The constitution of 1948 enabled fully autonomous self-government in financial administration and the election of the episcopate, while new dioceses would be initiated by the general synod without the intervention of external church authorities or mission boards.Footnote ⁶² Missionaries continued to be received warmly as their advice, training and financial support proved indispensable in post-war reconstruction. However, the key difference in legal terms was that the missionaries and home authorities were finally happy to cede their previous role in church government.

For the South China diocese, corresponding shifts took place in the post-war period. The standing committee, which in 1945 was entirely Chinese as the missionaries were yet to return, wrote to the CMS stating that the experience of war had testified to their ‘new faith and new courage’. In the same letter, the committee presented its intended ‘Ten Year Movement’, an action plan that involved the extension of evangelism through family prayer meetings and public preaching, which seemed to them the optimal methods of evangelism. It was suggested that the CMS might send returning missionaries to bolster theological training institutions.Footnote ⁶³ In this letter, the standing committee was asserting its leadership role by implying that it would define evangelistic strategy and that missionaries should follow their direction. As the missionaries returned, they met in December 1946 to discuss the future development of the diocese along indigenous lines. Speaking for the Chinese synod, Archdeacon Lee Kau-yan (Li Qiu'en) expressed how the war had awakened the church so that the relationship between society and church had had to become closer. A significant outcome of the meeting was the start of the complete transfer of CMS property to the CHSKH.Footnote ⁶⁴ Though the process did not take place as quickly as Archdeacon Lee would have liked, there was undoubtedly a quicker pace of change, as well as consensus on the nature of the redefined relationship.Footnote ⁶⁵ In 1947, Archbishop Fisher formally relinquished to the CHSKH house of bishops his final authority to select the South China bishop.Footnote ⁶⁶ The CHSKH constitution of 1948 thus reflects the complete transfer of property ownership and the emergence of a fully established self-governing church in the wake of the Second World War and its new generation of missionary thinkers.

The realignment was short-lived. The Communist victory in China in 1949 meant that by August 1951, Archbishop Fisher curiously found himself having to reassert his jurisdiction over the diocese of Hong Kong, which was now separate from the rest of South China. Three months earlier, Bishop Hall and Assistant Bishop Nathaniel Moyung (Murong Xian) had agreed on the division of the South China diocese, by which Hong Kong was separated ecclesiastically from the rest of South China. The newly-installed People's Government demanded that religious bodies within China should cut all ties with foreign jurisdiction, which in this case meant separating from Hong Kong, a British colony.Footnote ⁶⁷ Missionaries were forced to leave when Premier Zhou Enlai emphasized that the church, in line with the rest of China, had to be cleansed of imperialist connections.Footnote ⁶⁸ Everyone involved considered this a travesty. Bishop Moyung admitted in a private letter that he could not hold back his tears at the separation.Footnote ⁶⁹ Bishop Robin Chen (Chen Jian-zhen), chairman of the house of bishops, delivered a message to Archbishop Fisher, saying that he anticipated hard times and even a time when they would be forced to choose between death and resistance. In spite of the forced denunciations and physical separation, Chen would always view the CHSKH as a part of the worldwide Anglican Communion.Footnote ⁷⁰ In an address to the Hong Kong diocese, Bishop Hall remarked that he knew of no precedent in church history for the constitutional position facing them, whereby a fully participating member of an Anglican province found itself suddenly cut off from the rest. The diocese of Hong Kong chose to continue using the CHSKH canons as an expression of their desire that this would ‘not mean any spiritual divorce, but only a bowing to the necessities of the time’. Both Fisher and Hall had every intention of waiting for the reunion of Hong Kong to the CHSKH and the CHSKH to the Anglican Communion. The archbishop of Canterbury affirmed that he would act as metropolitan only on behalf of the chair bishop of the CHSKH.Footnote ⁷¹ Accordingly, Hall clarified at the 1951 diocesan synod that Fisher was not acting in his former capacity as head of the Chinese church as had been the case before 1947, for he recognized that Hong Kong now belonged to the CHSKH. Rather, Fisher was acting simply as the leading figure in the Anglican Communion.Footnote ⁷²

This unforeseen ending in 1951 is the ultimate illustration of the legal difficulties that beset the CHSKH and South China diocese from the beginning. The CHSKH clergy, CMS authorities and Church of England leaders found themselves having to keep up with volatile political changes in China while coming to terms with an ever-changing understanding of who stood where in global ecumenical fellowship. Each time they adjusted their constitutional structure, the situation altered again. This article has used the constitutional history of the South China diocese and the CHSKH over half a century to demonstrate the enduring difficulties and yet the dynamism involved in constituting a new church during the early twentieth century. This experience was probably not unique to South China; however, to substantiate this claim would require further research into canon law across modern worldwide Christianity in a global, comparative and connective approach.Footnote ⁷³ For the South China diocese, developing a stable legal structure was perpetually a work in progress, and this is arguably still the case today.Footnote ⁷⁴