Spirit of survival

Dressed in a grey gown, the female pastor leaned forward, her right hand pointing at the congregation, and said in a rising voice: 'Satan tells you that, if you worship me, I'll give you the Earth. What do you say? What do you say?'

'No, no,' shouted the packed audience of 1,000 people.

Sitting in the front row is John Dunlop, 66, a minister of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland (PCI) for more than 40 years, who has come to Manchuria - the northeast provinces of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang - to see the church that his forebears helped establish 140 years ago.

He is inspired by what he witnesses at the East Church of Shenyang, in Liaoning, an outpost of the Christian Church, but one that has survived a tumultuous 125 years - and has grown with other Protestant communities in Manchuria to possibly outnumber its founding institution, Ireland's PCI.

The church's story is one of survival and persistence of a foreign religion amid the hardships of a foreign land. Built with 800 seats in 1889 by a Scottish Presbyterian, John Ross, the Shenyang church this morning has about 3,000 people attending the service, many sitting outside on foldable chairs in the crisp autumn air, or in an adjoining building, listening over a sound system.

Mr Dunlop is moved by what he sees. 'My thoughts turned to ministers from Ireland and Scotland who had preached in this building, some of whom I knew, all of whom are now dead,' he said. 'Some had to leave China in 1951. In the words of one of them, 'The missionaries were locked out, but the church and the gospel were locked in'. During the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, there was hardly any news. People wondered if the church had survived. Now, here we were, sitting among thousands of Chinese Christians. It seemed like a miracle.'