Shanghai Christian Church Moore Memorial Church

This guide to Moore Memorial Church in Shanghai follows the building from its completion in 1931, when a five-meter neon cross spun atop its bell tower over People's Square, through the Japanese occupation, when soldiers turned the sanctuary into a stable for army horses. It traces the church's renaming to Mu'en, built on a much older Methodist mission dating to 1874, and its closure during the Cultural Revolution, when the doors stayed locked for over a decade. Look up at the Gothic bell tower and its carved stone columns, built to hold a thousand worshippers.