Moore Memorial Church

Moore Memorial Church (沐恩堂, Mù’ēn Táng) is a Protestant church at 316 Xizang Middle Road, on the edge of People’s Square. The present building was designed by László Hudec (邬达克) and opened in 1931.

The congregation is older than the building. The church’s own website dates its earliest predecessor to 1874, when an American Methodist missionary, Lan Bai (蓝柏), founded Trinity Church (三一堂) in the French Concession. In 1890 it was renamed 慕尔堂 (Moore Memorial Church) in memory of the daughter of a donor from Kansas, J. M. Moore.

The move to the present site came in the 1920s. Chinese Wikipedia says the congregation had raised 50,000 yuan by 1926, secured the former Chinese Girls’ School (中西女塾) site, and sold the old plot to a Hong Kong investor. Construction began in 1929, though the same article’s infobox gives 1930.

Hudec designed a Neo-Gothic church. Chinese Wikipedia describes pointed arches inside, concrete vaulting and a bell tower at the south-west corner. The main hall seated more than a thousand people, according to the church. A rotating neon cross about 5 m tall was added to the tower in 1936.

The church faces west, across the street from the former racecourse that is now People’s Square.

From 1941 to 1945, during the Pacific War, Japanese forces occupied the church and used it as a horse stable. Most of the seats were damaged. In 1958 it became a joint place of worship for Huangpu District and took its present name, 沐恩堂.

It was closed during the Cultural Revolution. Worship resumed on 2 September 1979; the church says it was the first Christian church in Shanghai to restart religious activities. It was designated a Shanghai municipal cultural relic protection unit in 1993.

The church website lists Sunday worship at 7:30, 10:00, 14:00 and 19:00 and gives opening hours of 7:00 to 20:00. It is an active place of worship, and the site gives no visiting rules for other days.