The Church Standing on the Last Piece of British Land in Hong Kong

The 1997 handover of Hong Kong saw the city's property market change hands to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) – all land owned previously by individuals became the property of the PRC. The local Hong Kong government, according to Article 7 of the Basic Law, thus became responsible for management, usage, sales, and development of land.

The law of land rights in Hong Kong is simple: land cannot be sold, but rather rented to the highest bidder for the right to occupy it for a period of time – usually 75 or 99 years, with a select few 999-year leaseholds signed upon land ownership.

There are only 536 999-year-old leasehold-enlisted properties that exist in Hong Kong. Most of the properties were purchased by the British government from 1849 to 1898 – today they are apartment buildings, factories, office blocks, and malls.

With only one exception, virtually every piece of land in Hong Kong is a leasehold, rented out by the government to private developers to build on, but never own in its entirety.

The only current land plot that exists as a freehold lease and is owned exclusively by a non-government entity is the St. John’s Cathedral, an English-Gothic style Anglican Cathedral in the centre of Hong Kong’s Christian and business world.

That non-government entity happens to be the Church of England, with headquarters in London, U.K., making the St. John’s Cathedral the oldest and last piece of British land still existing in Hong Kong, 24 years after Hong Kong returned to the hands of the PRC.

St. John’s Cathedral is located in the heart of Central and sandwiched in between Hong Kong’s most recognizable landmarks, dominated and often forgotten in the shadows. To its north is the U.S. Consulate of Hong Kong and Macao, south is Charter Garden, west is Murray Building and Hong Kong Park, and the east is the HSBC Building.

It’s 53,147-square-foot property located on Garden Road is worth an estimated HK$3.99 billion. It serves some 40,000 Anglican Christians based in Hong Kong Island.

The church is currently under the directorship of bishop Matthias Der, a Hong Kong-born Anglican who serves the diocese (ecclesiastical authority) of Hong Kong Island, a group of 16 churches in Hong Kong Island and the outlying islands, including St. John’s.

In 1847, when Hong Kong was owned outright as a British Crown Colony, a ruling was made by Queen Victoria to provide the church a freehold lease to ensure British Christian’s had a place of prayer and to guarantee that Hong Kong remained staunchly British, in religion and culture.

The lease secured that the St. John’s Cathedral can exist, as a non-government owned land, in perpetuity, under the condition that the land must be continually used for ecclesiastical purposes.

The freehold lease itself was codified in Hong Kong law in 1930 in the now-Church of England Trust Ordinance. It ensures that the cathedral will continue to remain in the possession of its trustees for as long as the land remains in the hands of the Church of England.

The trustees, a group of senior members of the Anglican Church in Hong Kong, includes the Bishop of Hong Kong Island, Matthias Der and the Dean, Chan Kwok Keung.

Directly managing the day-to-day operations of St. John’s, the ecclesiastical team of archbishop, bishops, deans, vicars, and clergymen operate under the direct jurisdiction of the Church of England from London.

Whilst independence is given to bishop Matthias Der and his team to manage the cathedral in any manner appropriate to what they see best for the continuation of the cathedral, the Church of England maintains symbolic control over the Hong Kong Diocese and immediate authority over the land in which the mammoth beige-painted church stands.

Development, refurbishment, or destruction of the site would require the Church of England, enlisted under the London HQ-command, to trade its freehold to the Hong Kong government for a lease, thereby stripping the U.K. off of its rights to the land on Garden Road.

The ownership of St. John’s Cathedral by the British Anglican church is not political, nor a power move to maintain a stronghold on the last remaining land owned by the British. The freehold law pertaining to the church maintains that Hong Kong’s sole freehold property is kept as a freehold property.

During the 1997 handover, the trade of St. John’s Cathedral from British hands to the PRC did not take place. One hundred seventy-four years ago, the law stated that it wouldn’t and thus it still stands today as Hong Kong’s last remaining pieces of British land in the Chinese territory.

Today, St. John’s is the oldest surviving Western ecclesiastical building in Hong Kong and the oldest Anglican church east of Jerusalem, Israel. Entering the cathedral’s cavernous hall, stretching from the nave (clergy space) to the ambulatory (choir assembly), one may be able to comprehend the churches massive religious authority in Hong Kong.

Pews fill to the brim during celebrations for Easter and Christmas. Filipino domestic helpers routinely travel on their weekly Friday or Saturday off to pray at St. John’s. Investors and bankers at nearby HSBC and Back of China take their lunches off to visit the church for blessings.