Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri, the leader of one of China’s largest underground churches, has been released from detention and reunited with his family in the United States.
His freedom after eight months in jail came less than two months after President Donald Trump personally raised his case with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
Pastor Jin arrived in Los Angeles at the weekend after he and 17 other leaders of the unregistered Zion Church were detained last October in one of the largest crackdowns on a single congregation in China in decades.
His family said the release came very quickly as they thanked President Trump and said it could not have happened without President Xi’s direct intervention.
“We hope this is a signal of a positive turn for people of faith in China,” they added.
PASTOR FREED AFTER TRUMP INTERVENTION, BUT CHRISTIAN BUSINESSMAN REMAINS IN JAIL
Pastor Jin’s case attracted high-level attention after President Trump, on his return from a state visit to Beijing, told reporters he had pressed President Xi on both Pastor Jin and jailed Hong Kong Christian and pro-democracy businessman and publisher Jimmy Lai.
President Trump said President Xi indicated he would “strongly consider” the pastor, but signaled Mr. Lai’s freedom would be more difficult.
The 78-year-old former clothing magnate and publisher of a Hong Kong tabloid critical of Beijing, received a 20-year jail sentence in February.
MEMBERS OF PASTOR JIN’S ZION CHURCH STILL LOCKED UP
Zion Church was founded by Pastor Jin in 2007 after he quit as a pastor for the official state-controlled Protestant church.
It had rapidly added members during the COVID-19 pandemic through Zoom sermons and small in-person gatherings.
Christian activists welcomed Pastor Jin’s release, but reminded the world other church leaders are still being held in custody.
“At least eight members of Zion Church remain detained in China,” Maya Wang from Human Rights Watch wrote.
“They should all be freed.”
HOW BIG IS ZION CHURCH?
The Zion Church is among the largest underground or house churches in China that are unregistered with authorities.
Its members defied a requirement that believers worship only in registered congregations.
“My father started Zion in order to worship freely in a church that put God as the sole head of our church, like many faithful Christians everywhere,” his daughter Grace Jin Drexel, who lives in the United States, told a US congressional committee in November.
Pastor Jin brought his family to the US after authorities targeted Zion Church in 2018, but he decided to go back despite the risks.
His daughter said last year that she hadn’t seen her father in six years.
WHY CHINA COMMUNIST PARTY FEELS THREATENED BY CHRISTIANITY
China has more than 44 million Christians registered with state-sanctioned churches, the majority of them Protestant, according to official figures.
But tens of millions more are estimated to be part of illegal “house churches” that operate outside the control of the ruling Communist Party, according to think tanks and NGOs.
Some estimates put the number of Christians in China at more than 100 million.
The ruling Communist Party, which is officially atheist, views organised religion as a potential threat to its hold on power.
Under President Xi, Chinese authorities have pushed to “Sinicize” religion by demanding loyalty to the party.
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