Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri, the influential leader of Zion Church—one of China’s largest underground Christian congregations—was detained by Chinese authorities on Friday, October 10, 2025, in what religious advocates and family members describe as a sweeping crackdown on independent churches. The arrest, which took place at Jin’s home in Beihai, Guangxi province, marks the latest escalation in China’s years-long campaign to control religious expression and silence unregistered faith communities.
According to Grace Jin, Pastor Jin’s daughter who now resides in the United States, her father’s detention was part of a coordinated roundup targeting nearly 30 Zion Church pastors and workers across major cities including Beijing, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Chengdu, Jiaxing, and Huangdao. The Associated Press reported that dozens of other church leaders were detained in Beijing and at least five other provinces the same day, with many believed to be facing charges related to the “illegal dissemination of religious content via the internet.”
“One after another, they were also taken, detained. Like, they were saying that there were people outside their doors, and then one at a time they were taken into custody,” Grace Jin told Fox News Digital, recounting the chilling sequence of events as relayed by those inside China. She explained that police showed detention slips to those arrested, citing the charge of online dissemination of religious materials, though no formal paperwork has been physically handed to the families.
Zion Church, once the largest congregation in Beijing, has long operated outside the official religious system—making it unlawful in the eyes of the authorities. Unregistered “house churches” like Zion have proliferated in China, offering believers an alternative to government-sanctioned worship. The Chinese Communist Party, led by Xi Jinping, has intensified its efforts over the past decade to “Sinicize” religion, demanding loyalty to the party and systematically eliminating any perceived threat to its authority. Measures have included destroying crosses, burning Bibles, shuttering churches, and forcing believers to sign documents renouncing their faith, according to multiple reports by The Associated Press and Fox News Digital.
The crackdown on Zion Church is not new. In 2018, the government forcibly shut down Zion’s main sanctuary, which regularly drew up to 1,500 worshippers each week. “When it shut down in 2018, there was no longer anywhere like physical locations that would ever rent out such a big space for Zion,” Grace Jin explained. “In fact, if you were to rent out even a small space, they would immediately find out and they would come and take down Zion.”
Rather than dissolve, Zion Church adapted. Pastor Jin and his leadership embraced a hybrid model—holding live online praise and worship sessions and encouraging small group gatherings in apartments, restaurants, and even karaoke bars. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, government-sanctioned churches often closed their doors due to public health restrictions, but Zion’s online presence flourished. “Zion kind of blew up at this point ... Christians all across China were attending Zion’s services because it was the only church service for a while that was hosting things every Sunday online with music and sermons,” Grace said. The church’s membership swelled from roughly 1,500 in 2018 to over 5,000 by 2025, with more than 100 worship sites in about 40 cities nationwide.
This rapid growth, and the church’s ability to connect believers nationwide, may have drawn the ire of Chinese authorities. “Zion blew up after COVID, so that irked the government,” Grace Jin told The Associated Press, suggesting that the church’s increasing influence was seen as a challenge to Communist Party control.
Pastor Jin’s commitment to his congregation has come at great personal cost. After the 2018 crackdown, he brought his family to the United States for safety, but later returned to China despite the risks. Since then, he has lived under constant surveillance and faced an exit ban, preventing him from reuniting with his children, who are U.S. citizens. “He felt that as a pastor he had to be with the flock,” Grace said, her voice breaking. “He had always been prepared for something like this.” She has not seen her father in more than six years.
The recent detentions extend beyond Zion Church. In May 2025, Pastor Gao Quanfu of Light of Zion Church in Xi’an was detained on charges of “using superstitious activities to undermine the implementation of justice.” In June, ten members of the Golden Lampstand Church in Shanxi province were sentenced to prison for “fraud”—charges that supporters say are often used to silence faith leaders. Grace Jin fears that similar charges could be added to her father’s case, noting that authorities seized financial documents during the raid on Zion Church.
Religious freedom advocates have condemned the crackdown as the most severe in decades. “We are witnessing the most extensive and coordinated wave of persecution against urban independent house churches in China in over four decades,” said Bob Fu, founder of the U.S.-based religious group China Aid, which has closely tracked the Zion Church arrests. In a statement to Fox News Digital, Fu declared, “Faith is not a crime. Worship is not a crime. Prayer is not a crime.” He urged U.S. leaders, including President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, to speak out against the Chinese government’s actions.
China’s Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Public Security, the department of religious affairs, and Beihai police did not respond to requests for comment from the Associated Press. The silence from officials has only heightened anxiety among the families of the detained. Jin’s family and supporters are now calling on the U.S. State Department to demand his “immediate and unconditional” release, allowing him to return to his family in the United States before facing further persecution.
The scale and coordination of the recent arrests have alarmed advocates and observers alike. According to Sean Long, a Zion Church pastor currently studying in the United States, the crackdown was documented in real time by church leaders inside China, who posted photos and videos of police entering church spaces in an online group chat. “This is a very disturbing and distressing moment,” Long told The Associated Press by phone. “This is a brutal violation of freedom of religion, which is written into the Chinese constitution. We want our pastors to be released immediately.”
For many, the courage of China’s urban pastors and their congregations stands in stark contrast to the government’s heavy-handed tactics. As Bob Fu of China Aid put it, “The courage of China’s urban pastors and believers will be remembered in history as a living testimony that the light of Christ cannot be extinguished by tyranny.”
As the fate of Pastor Jin and the other detained church leaders remains uncertain, the episode highlights the ongoing tension between China’s rapid modernization and its determination to control religious life. For families like the Jins, the struggle is not just about faith—it’s about the fundamental right to gather, worship, and choose one’s own beliefs, even when the cost is heartbreakingly high.
