Chinese underground church pastor, father of US citizens, detained by authorities, family says

The pastor of one of China’s biggest underground evangelical churches was arrested Friday in what appears to be a roundup of Christian leaders, and his family and followers fear for his safety.

Pastor Ezra Jin of Zion Church was detained by Chinese authorities, his daughter, Grace Jin, told Fox News Digital. Zion Church was at one point Beijing’s largest church. In a document provided to Fox News Digital by Grace, it states that Jin’s arrest came as nearly 30 Zion Church pastors and workers were detained or went missing across Beijing, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Chengdu, Beihai, Jiaxing, and Huangdao. The Associated Press reported that dozens of other church leaders in Bejing and at least five other provinces across China were arrested Friday as well.

“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 told Fox News Digital.

Jin’s family is calling on the U.S. State Department to demand the Chinese Communist Party release him “immediately and unconditionally, allowing him to return to his family in the United States prior to further persecution at the hands of the Chinese government.”

Jin’s fate and the fates of the other church leaders arrested alongside him remain uncertain, but China Aid, a U.S.-based religious group, said that so-called “house churches,” such as Zion, are “facing unprecedented pressure.”

“Xi Jinping has waged a war against God’s Church, such as the Zion Church, that he will never win. The level of persecution against religious freedom has reached the worst [level] in 40 years,” China Aid founder and president Dr. Bob Fu told Fox News Digital. “Faith is not a crime. Worship is not a crime. Prayer is not a crime.”

“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,” Fu added. He also called on President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to speak out and condemn the CCP’s crackdown.