Patrick Comerford
During my recent visit to Kuching, I was staying beside Saint Thomas’s Cathedral, and regularly attended the Cathedral Eucharist each Sunday. But I also visited the other buildings that share the extensive, landscaped and wooden grounds in the city centre, including the Bishop’s House, the Diocesan Office, the Parish Office, and the House of the Epiphany.
The House of the Epiphany is the theological college in the Anglican Diocese of Kuching, providing theological education to candidates for ordination. The new college buildings were opened a year ago, on 4 December 2023. However, the college dates from 1952, and before the House of the Epiphany opened a number of short-lived theological colleges served what is now the Diocese of Kuching.
The first theological college in the then Diocese of Labuan began in 1921 as the College of the Holy Way, also known as Divinity College, in Kudat, on the Kudat Peninsula. Kudat is near the northernmost point of Borneo, and about 190 km north of Jesselton, now Kota Kinabalu, the state capital of Sabah.
The Revd Ernest Parry was the warden of the college from 1921 to 1928, when five Chinese candidates were prepared for ordination as deacons in 1927 and priests in 1928. They included the Revd Lim Siong Teck, later martyred by the Japanese in 1945, the Revd Vun Nen Vun, the Revd Chong Paul En Siong, the Revd Lai Choon Sang, and the Revd Chin Phu Yin. The college continued until 1930, when Parry returned to England for health reasons.
A second theological school in the Diocese of Labuan was established by the Revd Wilfrid Linton in 1925. He opened the School of the Holy Spirit in Betong, about 250 km east of Kuching, to train Indigenous candidates for ordination. The Revd Matius Senang and the Revd Thomas Buda were ordained priests in 1926 and the Revd Laurence Angking was ordained in 1932.
The school closed after Linton’s health broke down, but a new theological course opened after five priests from the Community of the Resurrection in Mirfield arrived in Kuching in 1933: Edward Oswald Philipps, Wilfred Percy Brightwen Shelley, Father Thomas, Andrew Hamish Blair and Richard Law Wrathall.
These priests opened the Ordination Test School in Kuching in 1934 with six candidates. They included the Revd Hope Hugh, the Revd Lim Yong Chua, the Revd Martin Nanang and the Revd Ng Thau Sin, who were ordained deacons in 1936 and priests in 1937. However, the school closed when the last member of the Community of the Resurrection left Kuching in 1937. Father Andrew Hamish Blair later became the Principal of the College of the Resurrection in Yorkshire.
Canon Peter Howes (1911-2003), a USPG missionary, had worked at Saint James Church, Quop, throughout world War II and was later an Assistant Bishop of Kuching. He was asked to open a new theological college in Kuching, training local candidates for ordination.
The new college was the vision of the newly-appointed Nigel Cornwall (1903-1984), who was Bishop of Borneo in 1948-1962. Ten students enrolled and the college met at first in the Bishop’s House, on a hill above Saint Thomas’s Cathedral.
The admission of those students signalled a breakthrough in the process of transferring Church leadership in Kuching to local clergy in line with the threefold principles of the Church being self-propagating, self-supporting and self-governing.
The college building was completed and was dedicated on the Feast of the Epiphany in 1953, and so was named the House of the Epiphany. Six students were ordained deacons in 1955 and priests in 1956: Edmund Paleng, James Gunyau, Peter Radin, Arnold Puntang, Ambrose Dunggat and Alfred Chabu, who was later Archdeacon of Brunei and North Sarawak.
The college closed temporarily in 1956, but reopened in 1971, and Peter Howes returned as the Principal, with the Revd Alex Reid as Warden.
The college was restructured in 1987, and was affiliated with the Australian College of Theology, based in Sydney, offering a Diploma in Ministry. It re-established its independence in 1992, offering the Bishop’s Certificate of Ministry.
Later wardens and principals of the House of the Epiphany included the Revd Bolly Lapok from 1999, later Bishop of Kuching and Archbishop of South-East Asia; and Canon Michael Spencer Woods (2009-2017).
The House of the Epiphany has been rebuilt in recent years, with new buildings and new facilities. The new buildings and upgraded facilities at the theological college were completed last year at a cost of RM 11.5 million. The new House of the Epiphany was opened a year ago (4 December 2023) by the Deputy Premier, Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas. ‘This beautiful building stands majestically as a new landmark in the heart of Kuching city,’ the Deputy Premier said.
The new complex is both a theological training college for priests-in-training and a hub for the training of youth leaders and women’s ministries, and it offers refresher courses for the local clergy and lay leaders. The centre also facilitates and organises workshops, training sessions, seminars, conferences, study groups and retreats at diocesan, regional and parish level.
The five-storey building houses a chapel, lecture room, seminar rooms, library, administrative and staff offices, ministry offices, a small museum, staff and student accommodation and meeting spaces. A detached lecture room nearby separates the Warden’s House from the main building.
At the opening of the new House of the Epiphany last year, Bishop Danald Jute said would function as a theological training college for priests-in-training and also as a training space for leaders in youth and women’s ministries.
‘With the Christmas season about three weeks away, this House of Epiphany certainly makes for a most wonderful Christmas gift to the community in the state’ of Sarawak, Bishop Jute said.
