Although the dioceses of Los Angeles and Taiwan are separated by an ocean—a nonstop flight from the California city to Taipei takes over 13 hours—recent meetings have showcased the close ties between the two ecclesiastical jurisdictions. A companion relationship was made official during the dioceses’ respective conventions in 2023. Their bishops and deputies also met during the 81st General Convention held in Louisville, Kentucky, last summer.
On the morning of July 30, Bishop John Taylor of Los Angeles and Bishop Lennon Chang of Taiwan joined a meeting for individuals interested in exchange ministry at St. Paul’s Commons in Los Angeles.
“When Bishop Chang and I first began discussing our exchange of visits, the word ‘exchange’ kept coming up: exchanges of youth, summer campers, seminarians, ministry interns, theology students, language students, and recently ordained clergy,” Taylor told Episcopal News, his diocese’s news arm.
In an earlier report by The News, Taylor highlighted how the Diocese of Los Angeles is a “multilingual diocese,” explaining that leaders—both clergy and lay—are urged “to develop capacity and eventually fluency in a language other than English.”
Mandarin, the official language of Taiwan, would be deemed a “great choice,” Taylor said, adding that it could be learned through a trip to the East Asian nation or an internship in one of its missions or parishes. There are over 900 million native Mandarin speakers.
The Rev. Claire Chia-Lin Wang, formerly of the Taiwan diocese’s youth ministry department, showed clear alignment with this aim when she presented two potential programs. The first is an exchange program for seminarians and young adults lasting from a quarter to a year; the second is a summer camp that would bring together youth from the Los Angeles diocese to lead with their Taiwan counterparts.
The focus of such exchanges, Wang said, would include culture and language. A seminarian from North Carolina, who recorded a video presented during the meeting, described his two-month immersion in the 70-year-old diocese as life-changing.
After the event, the delegation from the Taiwan diocese visited the campus of the University of Southern California and St. Mark’s Church in Altadena. The 100-year-old parish and its school were burned down by the wildfires that swept across Southern California in January. The group also visited the site of a sober living house supported by the Church of Our Savior in San Gabriel, California, which was razed by the fire. The Church of Our Savior holds a Mandarin Holy Eucharist every Sunday morning.
The delegation “prayed together for divine healing and restoration for all God’s children impacted by the wildfire,” the Rev. Katherine Feng from the Los Angeles diocese wrote on social media in Mandarin. Feng served as a translator for Hannah Chang, wife of the Bishop of Taiwan, during the Lambeth Conference of 2022.
Since July 25, Taylor has been documenting the 10-day pilgrimage of Bishop Lennon and Hannah Chang and their colleagues on social media. Two priests and several missionaries from Malaysia have joined the couple on this trip to the West Coast.
During a welcome dinner for the delegates, Taylor—a former chief of staff to President Richard Nixon’s office after Nixon resigned—provided an explainer of the complexity Taiwan is facing, especially given the current political climate.
“Nowadays, when people say ‘China,’ they usually mean the mainland. Taiwan has been pushed to the margins in the political conversation,” Taylor said.
“Yet when Fennie, Katherine, Thomas, and I visited Bishop Lennon Yuan-rung Chang and his colleagues in the Episcopal Diocese of Taiwan in September, we felt right at home. Our countries share a commitment to political and economic liberalism as well as a lively spiritual life,” he added, referring to members of the Los Angeles delegation who joined him last fall on a trip to Taiwan, which coincided with the Taiwan diocese’s 70th anniversary.
Taylor wrote that the next few years will be difficult between Taiwan and the mainland, and that peace will require “cool heads” among leaders of three countries—China, Taiwan, and the United States. Taiwan is a key U.S. ally and deemed a bulwark against Chinese diplomatic and military pressure.
“There isn’t a lot we can do for peace as individuals. But as followers of the risen Christ, we are part of something bigger than ourselves,” Taylor said.
“We pray our exchange of visits will deepen the friendship between Taiwan and Los Angeles Episcopalians while helping our diocese offer support to all our neighbors in the Chinese diaspora who may be affected by global crisis. We can’t do everything. But in Christ, we can do that.”
Chang was elected as the sixth bishop of Taiwan during a convention held on August 3, 2019. The Diocese of Taiwan is the Episcopal Church’s only Asian diocese, and a member of Province VIII. It has 17 churches, and was established in 1954 by Episcopalians who fled to Taiwan from mainland China after its civil war.
Caleb Maglaya Galaraga is The Living Church’s Episcopal Church reporter. His work has also appeared in Christianity Today, Broadview Magazine, and Presbyterian Outlook, among other publications.
