Yokohama Christ Church, Anglican church in Yamatecho, Japan.
Yokohama Christ Church is a stone church in Yamatechō, Yokohama, built in a combination of Norman and Gothic architectural styles on a steel-reinforced concrete frame. The exterior is clad in Ōya Stone, a volcanic tuff quarried in Tochigi Prefecture, which gives the building its warm, grey-green tone.
Anglicans in Yokohama's foreign community began worshipping in the British consul's residence after the port opened in 1859, and the garrison church, also called Christ Church, was consecrated on 18 October 1863 in Yamashita-cho. The congregation moved to its present Yamate site in 1901 into a red Glasgow brick building by Josiah Conder, destroyed in the 1923 Kantō earthquake. The current church, designed by Jay Hill Morgan, dates from 1931.
The English-language congregation, Yokohama Christ Church, traces its roots to worship held in the British consul's residence after the port opened in 1859. Since 1952 its chaplain has also served the Mission to Seafarers near the port. Before Christmas the festival of Nine Lessons and Carols is held, and Choral Evensong is sung from time to time.
Sunday services are open to all visitors regardless of denomination, and this is the most reliable way to see the interior. The church is in the Yamate area, which is easy to walk around, and several other historic buildings from the same period are nearby.
Ōya Stone is common in Japan but almost never used in Western-style church buildings outside the country. The stone is soft enough that tool marks from cutting are sometimes visible on the surface, giving the walls a texture quite different from the smooth dressed stone of European churches.
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