Pastor Ezra Jin Mingi, leader of the influential underground Church of Sion, was detained on Friday evening at his home in Beihai, located in the Chinese southeast province of Guangxi, according to his daughter, comrades and monitoring groups of religious rights, as stated by AP.
Dozens of other leaders of the Sion Church were also allegedly arrested in Beijing and at least five other provinces across the country. Sean Long, the pastor of the Church of the Church in Sion, which currently based in the US, said that detainment could face accusations related to “unlawful dissemination of religious content over the Internet”.
“It’s a very worrying and desperate moment,” Long Associated Press said by phone. “This is a brutal violation of the freedom of religion that is registered in the Chinese Constitution. We want our pastors to be immediately released.”
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US Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned Chinese on Sunday to detain several leaders of the Sion Church in China. The US called for their immediate release.
In the X Rubio post, he said: “The United States condemns the recent detain of the Chinese Communist Party to dozens of leaders unregistered Zion Church in China, including the prominent pastor of Mingi” Ezra “Jin. We call on their immediate release. ”
What is the Zion Church?
Zion Church is an underground or house of a church that is not registered with the Chinese authorities. They defy the limitation of the Chinese government requiring believers to worship only in registered churches.
He founded in 2007 Pastor Jin Mingi (Ezra Jin), an ethnic Korean Korean, who became a Christian after the massacre of the Hazard of 1989, and the Church has grown to the main evangelical power with thousands of followers and focusing on reformed theology.
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Under the Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Beijing has taken on independent Christian churches over the last decade, destroyed crosses, burned the Bible, closed churches, and ordered the followers to sign the papers that gave up their faith. The Chinese authorities tried to “sinicize” religion by demanding loyalty to the officially atheistic communist party and eliminating any call to his power over the lives of people.
This photograph provided by the pastor Sean Long of the Zion Church shows that the police on Friday, October 10, 2025 (Sean Long over AP) on Friday, October 10, 2025.
Zion Church was among many targeted during a large intervention in 2018, which led to the closure of his main sanctuary.
According to Pastor Sean Long, the membership of the Church in 2018 increased from about 1,500 to an estimated 5,000 or more today. Now it operates more than 100 unofficial worship in 40 cities, including apartments, restaurants and even karaoke bars.
Why does China see the “underground” church as a threat?
Other underground churches in China have faced increasing pressure in recent months, in the middle of a renewed government effort to control religious activities outside the state -approved channels.
Because it refuses to register under the state three-Self patriotic movement, the Chinese government considers Zion Church to be a potential threat to the Communist Party control. She faced repeated interventions, especially in 2018, when the authorities closed their Beijing operations, ranked Pastor Jin under supervision and temporarily prevented his members of the family of US citizens to leave China.
What is the three-Self patriotic movement (TSPM)?
The Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) is a State Protestant Christian Organization in China, founded in 1954 to regulate and control the Protestant Church under the CCP.
Its name comes from three basic principles of-Samo-right, self-support and self-composing, which emphasize independence from the influence of foreign missionaries and harmony with the policy of the Chinese government.
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It is operated under the National Committee of TSPM, under the supervision of state administration for religious affairs (Sara) and department of United Front.
Zion Church explicitly rejects TSPM supervision to preserve its theological independence and focus on reformed theology and uncensored learning.
“Zion has fired after Covid”
Jin’s daughter, Grace Jin, who lives in the United States, is not sure what caused this recent intervention, but she believes that this may be due to the growing influence and challenge for the government of the Communist Party.
“Zion, after Covid, threw out to get angry,” she said.
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In May, the pastor of Light Sion was detained in Xi’an in East China. In June, ten years ago, ten years ago, ten members of the Golden Lampstand church in the western Shanxi province were convicted.
This photograph provided by the pastor Sean Long of the Zion Church shows how the shepherd Sun Cong of Sion Church, who wears handcuffs, stands after he was detained by the police in his home in Beijing in China on Friday, October 10, 2025.
“We are witnessing the most extensive and coordinated waves of persecution against city independent houses in China for more than four decades,” said Bob Fu, founder of the American religious group China Aid, who also reported Zion Church, as stated by Associated.
In 2021, the US government estimates that Buddhists make up 18.2 %of the total population in the country, Christians 5.1 %, Muslims 1.8 %, followers of folk religion 21.9 %, and atheists, or uniform persons 52.2 %.
Religious freedom in China
China continued to suppress religious freedom through a widespread high-tech supervision of worship and beyond. The authorities also used advanced technologies for multinational repression and misinformation campaigns aimed at silencing criticism of human rights violations.
According to a report from the annual report of the USCIRF of 2025, the Chinese authorities threatened the Uyghur communities and Tibetan diaspora with supervision, blackmail and threats to their families living in China to force them to silence.
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The authorities also promoted tourism to Xin -Eťiang to equip their genocidal violation and reject international criticism.
Human rights activists continued to express concerns about the new National Security Act in Hong Kong, Article 23 and its impact on religious freedom. Some imprisoned Hong Kong activists claimed that the prison authorities deny them access to religious materials.
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