wfn.org | Taiwan's Presbyterians Establish Formal Ties to Brazilian and=20

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

Japanese Churches

Taiwan Church News 2766, 28 February to 6 March 2005

Reported by Li Hsin-ren . Written by David Alexander

The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan (PCT), because of its friendly
relationships to Taiwan's Holiness Church, has now established a formal
sister-church relationship with the Church of Christ in Japan.

Missionaries from The Church of Christ of Japan established Taiwan's
Holiness Church early in the 20th century.  By 2003 there were 86 local
congregations of the Holiness church with a total of over 6000 members.

Taiwan¡¦s Presbyterian and Holiness Churches enjoy a harmonious
partnership. Last October on an initiative from the Holiness Church the
establishment of formal sisterhood arrangement was discussed by the PCT's
Faith and Order committee.  It takes into account mutual understandings of
faith, mutual historical experiences in Taiwan and similar organizational
structures. The committee responded favourably to the initiative in
February and sent it to the PCT's executive committee.

The PCT's ecumenical committee also passed along to the executive committee
proposals for the new ties to Japanese and Brazilian churches last month.
The Japanese church has 13,000 members in 137 congregations and 157 clergy.
No numbers were given for the Brazilian church.

For more information: Ecumenical Committee Faith and Order
Committee  hontiong@mail.pct.org.tw

Taiwan Church News is published weekly in Taiwan's local languages.

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