Anglican Head Delivers Historical Beijing Service as China Tour Concludes

The Archbishop of Canterbury has held his first ever service in Beijing, China, in which he officially welcome the role Christians were playing on key Chinese issues.

|PIC1|During the sermon, Dr Rowan Williams said there was "great opportunity" for Christian leaders and Chinese intellectuals to play their part in "responsible discussions".

The Archbishop has discussed censorship and the death penalty in his two-week visit, and he had praised China for the way it treated children from difficult backgrounds.

Dr Williams praised the efforts of people who helped orphans and the work done with youngsters whose parents were in prison or had been executed.

Reflecting on his two weeks in China, the head of the world's Anglican Church said on Monday he had been surprised and encouraged by changing official attitudes towards religion in China He added, however, that he was still concerned about freedom of worship.

"We're a long way past the Cultural Revolution - we're a long way past a situation where there is a systematic attempt to block out or expurgate religion," the spiritual leader of 77 million Anglicans worldwide told a news conference in Beijing.

|QUOTE|"There's a record, over the last 20 or 30 years, of harassment of religious minorities that have been unhappy and it is recognised as a problem and embarrassment by many people in high positions," he said.

However, the officially atheist Communists, who have run China for the last half a century, say religious freedom is at the core of the Chinese constitution, and it promotes the freedom of citizens to attend worship at centres under state control.

In a sermon delivered at the Chaoyang Protestant Church in Beijing, Dr Williams said: "Christians must develop an inner freedom. A freedom that allows them to see the truth about themselves and about the society they live in."

He also said: "It is no longer true - if it ever was true - that being Christian is to stop being really Chinese."

Concerns have been raised during Dr Williams' visit that he would not be shown a true image of what the situation for Christians was like in the country. In particular, international rights groups have accused China of jailing Catholic priests for remaining loyal to the Pope.

One case of persecution that has been raised is of a Protestant minister, Cai Zhuohua, who was jailed for three years in 2005 for illegally printing Bibles.

Dr Williams said he had brought up Cai and other similar cases with Chinese officials, though the only response he got was a request for more information.

"The assumption is that group activity needs to be coordinated with the authority, the unique and exclusive authority, of the state, and that's a general problem. The state of current regulation means it's very difficult for officialdom to present absolutely clear distinctions between an orthodox, ordinary, Protestant, evangelical house group and a cult."

Experts believe that China has 40 to 80 million active Christians divided between state-run and Underground churches.

Although many serious concerns still exist, Beijing seems to have taken steps to improve its reputation on religious tolerance, has held talks with Vatican envoys, and has now hosted a two-week visit from the Archbishop of Canterbury.