Yu Guozhen

Who was Yu Guozhen?

Yu Guozhen was a pastor and the founder of an independent Chinese Christian organization, the China Christian Independent Church. Yu was born in Huzhou, Zhejiang province to a Chinese Presbyterian pastor of the Xinshi township in Zhejiang. In 1867 he attended the Hangzhou Presbyterian Boys' school, organized by the North American Presbyterian church. There Yu converted to Christianity. After graduating 1872, he was appointed as a pastor of a Presbyterian congregation in Xinshi Township, Huzhou.

In 1894, the North American Presbyterian missionary John Farnham took holiday leave and returned home, handing over the pastoral responsibility of a Shanghai Presbyterian church congregation on Hanyang road to pastor Yu.

Yu became an advocate of the "self-support" movement, thus in 1903 he purchased a piece of land on Haining road near North Shanghai and the following year he formed a self-supporting Presbyterian church congregation and severed all financial ties with the mission churches. On January 25, 1906, Yu established the China Christian Independent Church. The local congregations in Pingyang of Zhejiang, Tianmen of Hubei, and several others joined his group. By 1910, the General Assembly of the China Christian Independent Church was formed in Shanghai.