The relentless persecution of house churches continues. It follows orders from Xi Jinping himself.
by Wang Zhipeng
The news from Hefei on February 13 was grim but not unexpected. After more than two years of detentions, delays, and opaque legal maneuvers, the Shushan District Court has handed down heavy sentences against two leaders of Hefei’s Ganquan Church. Pastor Zhou Songlin has been sentenced to four years and six months in prison, with a fine of 30,000 yuan, while Elder Ding Zhongfu received a four‑year sentence and a fine of 28,000 yuan. Both men are being held at the Hefei (Male) Detention Center in Changfeng County, where they have remained since their arrest in late 2023. The court also ordered the confiscation of more than 366,000 yuan deemed “illegal income,” with instructions to pursue any remaining amount, and authorized the disposal of seized property and frozen bank accounts.
“Bitter Winter” last reported on this case in March 2025, when the prosecution had just been transferred to the Shushan District Court and the internal fractures within the church were beginning to show. At that time, the story already bore the hallmarks of a familiar pattern: a long‑established house church, operating peacefully for decades, suddenly targeted under the pretext of “fraud,” a charge increasingly used by authorities to dismantle unregistered Christian communities.
Ganquan Church has existed for roughly 20 years and has gathered more than 400 believers in Hefei. Like many house churches that refuse to join the state‑controlled Three‑Self Patriotic Movement, it never obtained legal status. Its properties — purchased openly through member donations — were registered under the names of its pastor and elders, a necessity for any unregistered congregation. This administrative workaround later became the basis for criminal accusations.
The crackdown began on November 30, 2023, when police raided the homes of Pastor Zhou, Elder Ding, and several co‑workers. Ding and Zhou were taken into custody immediately; three others—Mao Junma, Pei Defei, and Yang Peiyun—were detained, interrogated, and later released on bail. By the end of 2023, the church’s leadership had been effectively neutralized.
Throughout 2024, the case moved slowly, marked by repeated delays and pressure on church members. Some co‑workers, intimidated by authorities, disagreed over whether to hire defense lawyers, leading to internal divisions and even departures from the congregation. From detention, Pastor Zhou insisted that the charges were political, stressing that neither he nor Elder Ding had ever engaged in political activity. Their wives publicly protested their innocence, stating that no fraud had occurred and that all church funds had been used transparently for worship and community needs.
Members of the congregation submitted petitions and testimonies to the Hefei Religious Affairs Bureau and the Criminal Investigation Team, affirming that no one had been deceived and that the accusations were fabricated. None of these appeals received a response.
The sentences announced today confirm what many observers feared: the authorities were determined to secure convictions regardless of the facts. The use of “fraud” charges against house church leaders has become a standard tactic since Xi Jinping’s directives at the National Conference on Work Related to Religious Affairs on December 3–4, 2021, which encouraged local officials to treat unregistered religious activity as a threat to social( stability. By framing ordinary church administration as criminal misconduct, the state can dismantle congregations without ever acknowledging that the real issue is religious independence.
The Ganquan Church case now joins a growing list of similar prosecutions across China, where pastors and elders are imprisoned not for wrongdoing but for refusing to place their congregations under state control. The sentences handed down in Hefei are severe, but they are also emblematic of a broader campaign that shows no sign of slowing.
Uses a pseudonym for security reasons.
