Anglican Church of Korea

The Anglican Church of Korea
The Official Emblem of the Anglican Church of Korea
Primate	The Most Reverend Paul Geun Sang Kim, Bishop of Seoul, Archbishop of Korea
Headquarters	Seoul
Territory	Korea (North Korea and South Korea)
Members	65,000
Website	http://www.skh.or.kr/

The Anglican Church of Korea is the province of the Anglican Communion in North and South Korea. Founded in 1889, it has over 120 parish and mission churches with a total membership of roughly 65,000 people.

The birth of the Anglican Church of Korea can be traced back to November 1, 1889, when Bishop Charles John Corfe was ordained at Westminster Abbey and inaugurated as the first diocesan bishop of Joseon (Korea). With his colleagues who had been invited to join the mission, he arrived in Incheon Port on 29 September 1890. He initiated his work in the Seoul area, including Gyeonggi and Chungcheong provinces. He first opened a number of educational institutions, medical facilities and social work centers across the country, such as the Sinmyeong (Faith and Enlightenment) schools and the hospitals in the vicinities of Incheon, Yeoju and Jincheon as well as the orphanages in Suwon and Anjung. The Anglican missionaries also sought possible ways for the church to be integrated into Korean culture. As a result of that effort, there are several Anglican Church buildings which were constructed in the traditional Korean architecture and which survive today such as those on Ganghwa Island. In addition, the early missionaries made pioneering contributions to Korean studies.

Beginning in 1923 mission work was actively carried out in the northern part of the peninsula such as Pyongan and Hwanghae Provinces. To train the local clergy St. Michael's Theological Institute, the former institution of the present Sungkonghoe (Anglican) University, was established in 1923, followed by the Society of the Holy Cross (convent) in 1925. Also, the cathedral Church of St. Mary the Virgin and St. Nicholas in downtown Seoul was initially constructed in 1924 and is now well known for its unique Romanesque architecture as it is the only one in this fashion in the orient, together with its mosaic murals.