CHINA: PASTOR AND CHURCH STAFF ARRESTED

Please pray: A pastor and several staff from a house church in northern China have been arrested and taken into custody by authorities.

The incident occurred as church members were preparing for a church event. Once found and arrested, the group was placed under ‘administrative detention’, a short-term punishment usually handed out for minor crimes. However, a few days later the charges were changed to the more serious label of ‘criminal detention’. This is a measure used in criminal investigations that can lead to formal prosecution and trial.

The pastor and church workers are now being held in a detention centre awaiting trial, unable to contact friends and family.

Targeted by the government

The house church where these brothers and sisters serve consists of a large congregation of over 1,000 believers. In the face of increasing pressure on Christian gatherings that fall outside of state-sanctioned churches like the Three-Self Patriotic Movement or the Catholic Patriotic Association, this house church has been meeting in smaller groups to avoid arousing the suspicion of authorities.

State sanctioned or approved churches normally have to abide by certain conditions laid down by the government. These churches are closely overseen by the State who monitor what is preached and who is there. As a result, many churches decide not to register, and instead meet underground as house churches. But, as is the case with this situation, these churches face raids, fines, arrests, imprisonments and the confiscation of materials. 

Image: A church service in a Chinese state approved church.

“The pastor and his coworkers were not detained simply because they were preparing a Christian activity at that moment,” Joel*, an Open Doors local partner serving in the region, explains. “The authorities had already been monitoring their church, and this operation appears to have been carried out according to a predetermined list of individuals for detention. This house church has existed for many years, and because of its large number of believers, it has become a target of increased scrutiny and suppression.

“We are now worried that the authorities may use the church’s offerings as grounds for a fraud charge against the detained pastor and coworkers,” Joel continues. “In recent years, similar cases have occurred in house churches in China in which pastors and church workers from house churches were convicted of fraud because of church offerings. Please pray for this situation.”

*Name changed for security reasons