Liaoyang Christian Church

In August 1894, during the Sino-Japanese War, soldiers from General Zuo Baogui's army vandalized a Gospel Hall on West Sandao Street in Liaoyang. When British missionary James Lee went to report the damage, soldiers mistook him for a Japanese national and assaulted him. Lee died that evening at age thirty-one. The Qing government paid seven thousand taels of silver in compensation to Lee's father, who donated the entire sum to build a memorial sanctuary.

Completed in 1907, the Liaoyang Christian Church, originally known as the Li Gong Martyrdom Church stands at No. 34 Dongsandao Street. . British engineer George Ashcroft designed the structure, blending a traditional Chinese quadrangle layout with a Western cruciform Roman Basilica. Today, visitors can feel the cool surface of the large blue bricks and the rough, hand-carved granite columns that support the building. Above, a traditional Chinese palace-style roof of green tiles shields the sanctuary.

Inside the main hall, which is eighteen meters long and eleven meters wide, four octagonal stone-and-brick pillars rise to support the central pulpit through half-round arches. The space once accommodated four hundred worshippers and served as the headquarters of the Liaohai Diocese, which founded a maternity hospital and local schools.

High above the sanctuary, a twelve-meter-tall wood-and-stone bell tower holds a 217-kilogram steel-cast bell. Cast in 1881 by Vickers of Sheffield, England, the bell once sent its deep, metallic ring across the ancient city. At the very top, a 1.5-meter-tall red steel cross catches the light.

The original stone monument commemorating Lee's death now resides in the nearby Liaoyang Museum. The church itself remains an active place of worship and a provincial cultural heritage site. The building stands as a physical record of a father's grief, a missionary's sudden death, and the architectural meeting of East and West.