China Detains Beijing house church leaders in latest crackdown on unregistered churches

Authorities in China have detained several pastors and church workers from Beijing Jiaquan Church, an independent house church operating in the capital.

The U.S.-based group ChinaAid said it has received firsthand accounts of the arrests, though the number of people held and the charges against them remain unknown.

The group said it was checking whether Jiaquan congregations outside Beijing were hit.

A coordinated operation in several places, if confirmed, would mark another major move against churches outside the state-run religious system, the group said.

ChinaAid’s founder and President Bob Fu said his organization is “urgently concerned for the safety, health and legal rights of every Jiaquan pastor and church co-worker who has been taken away.” He asked authorities to name the detainees, disclose where they're being held, provide the legal grounds for their apprehension and detention, and allow them to see independent lawyers.

Jiaquan has operated in the capital for over two decades, has 1,000 members, and has built churches and meeting locations in several parts of China, people familiar with the church said. It draws younger Christians in cities with discipleship, contemporary worship music and interactive fellowship.

Its leaders have run Noah Music School in Beijing for over 10 years, training worship leaders and musicians for house churches around China.

The arrests occurred days before Xi’s summit with President Donald Trump, and follow a Sept. 16 Washington forum on religious freedom, where advocates highlighted cases of Christian persecution ahead of Xi’s visit.

Fu called the arrests part of a growing campaign aimed at several of China’s most influential city churches. He said these churches differ in history and ministry and share a resolve to run church life free of government political control.

House churches stay outside the Three-Self Patriotic Movement, the government-approved Protestant body, and other Protestant structures under state control. Rules on unregistered religious groups have tightened in recent years, and there have been verified cases of raids, surveillance and prosecutions.

In October 2025, authorities began coordinated raids on Beijing Zion Church, among the biggest house-church networks in China. Members were detained in several provinces, and 18 were formally arrested.

The group reported on Sept. 10 that eight Zion pastors and co-workers were still in custody in Beihai, a city in the southern autonomous region of Guangxi, on charges of “fraud” and “illegal business operations.”

Police have also repeatedly acted against Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu, the Sichuan provincial capital in southwestern China. On June 14, police broke up a church meeting at a hotel in the city of Jiangyou, northeast of Chengdu, and detained more than 30 members.

On Sept. 10, police detained 11 Christians, most of them older than 60, at a small reading group in a teahouse. Authorities banned Early Rain after mass arrests in December 2018, and its founding pastor, Wang Yi, was later sentenced to nine years in prison.

A lawyer for Zion Church pastors has fled China with her spouse and their two children as authorities pressed her law firm to dissolve. Ruth Wang is a partner at the firm, VDoor, and since October 2025 has been on the legal team for Zion founder Pastor Ezra Jin and other detained members.

Taiwan has given the family temporary humanitarian housing, according to the news account Visegrad 24. The Malaysia Sun reported that Wang arrived on the island earlier this month.

Taiwanese officials reportedly told Wang the island cannot grant asylum to mainland Chinese under its rules, citing tensions between Beijing and the island’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party. Wang is considering a move to the U.S. or Canada and has said the family’s future is uncertain.

In a separate case, authorities released Lian Xuliang, pastor of the unregistered Xi’an Church of Abundance in Shaanxi province, over four years after they opened a national security case against him and two others. He went home earlier this month, according to the rights group Weiquanwang.

The rights group Church in Chains said the three spent six months held apart in small rooms of a former hotel while their families heard nothing. It said they were starved, beaten, drugged and denied bathroom use for long stretches.