The head of the 77 million-strong Anglican Church, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, held a service in Beijing for the first time on Sunday, Reuters reported. Williams is on a two-week visit to China during which he has attended meetings with government officials on issues including censorship, the death penalty and the environment. He told a congregation of about 700 – most of them Chinese – at Chaoyang Protestant Church that Christians in the country had a great opportunity to participate in discussions on these issues. "It is no longer true – if it ever was true – that being Christian is to stop being really Chinese," he said. Human rights groups claim that China has jailed Catholic priests and Buddhist monks for pledging loyalty to the Pope and the Dalai Lama instead of Beijing. It is said that there are 40-80 million active Christians in China.
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