• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
  • HOME
  • ABOUT CHINA
    • NEWS
    • TESTIMONIES
    • OP-EDS
    • FEATURED
    • GLOSSARY
    • CHINA PERSECUTION MAP
  • FROM THE WORLD
    • NEWS GLOBAL
    • TESTIMONIES GLOBAL
    • OP-EDS GLOBAL
    • FEATURED GLOBAL
  • INTERVIEWS
  • DOCUMENTS AND TRANSLATIONS
    • DOCUMENTS
    • THE TAI JI MEN CASE
    • TRANSLATIONS
    • EVENTS
  • ABOUT
  • EDITORIAL BOARD
  • TOPICS

Bitter Winter

A magazine on religious liberty and human rights

three friends of winter
Home / China / News China

Bans on Religious Funeral Ceremonies Further Expanded

08/23/2020Wang Yichi |

The CCP enforces strict measures to prohibit people from saying goodbye to their deceased devout family members according to religious traditions and customs.

by Wang Yichi

In June, the Office of the Ethnic and Religious Affairs Committee in the northeastern province of Liaoning issued a Notice About Bans on Holding Religious Funeral Ceremonies at Funeral Venues. The document orders all local ethnic and religious affairs departments to not approve religious funerals in cemeteries, funeral parlors, and other such venues. All these sites are banned from holding religious ceremonies for the deceased, including preaching sermons or reading scripture and distributing religious items.

The Notice About Bans on Holding Religious Funeral Ceremonies at Funeral Venues.

The order is being implemented throughout Liaoning. The Ethnic and Religious Affairs Committee of Dandong city issued an order banning “private religious activities outside religious venues.” The document foresees inspections of funeral parlors and orders religious venues to implement self-inspection measures to eliminate such activities.

“In July, the Religious Affairs Bureau summoned church directors to inform them that congregations were not allowed to hold services for the deceased, and preachers were banned from hosting wedding and funeral ceremonies,” said a Three-Self church preacher from the county-level city of Xinmin, administered by Shenyang city. “Any clergy member who holds such services or ceremonies will be dismissed and punished.”

Bans on religious funeral ceremonies are also implemented in other provinces: people are harassed in funeral venues or even in their homes.

Christians in a funeral service
Christians in a funeral service.

In April, after a member of the Great Praise Church passed away in Yanji town, administered by Shangqiu city in the central province of Henan, her family planned to set up a funeral shed, popular with Chinese Christians, but were stopped by government officials. They rebuked the family, saying that religious symbols are not allowed in people’s homes, so there was no way they could build a funeral shed.

The same month, a Three-Self preacher from Henan’s Yongcheng city was forced to stop a religious funeral ceremony he was holding for a deceased family member. “If I hold religious ceremonies, my church might be implicated, even closed forever,” the preacher explained.

A believer from Ningbo city in the eastern province of Zhejiang told Bitter Winter that in April and June, members of her church went to the local crematorium twice to sing hymns for deceased believers, but security guards told them to leave. When they asked for an explanation, the guards said that “religious hymns cannot be sung because China is an atheist country.”

In September last year, after a member of an unregistered Catholic church died in a town under the jurisdiction of Zhejiang’s Wenzhou city, three government officials came to her home to warn the woman’s relatives that religious funerals had been banned. They explained that “extravagance and waste of money are not allowed” and told to remove crosses and other religious symbols.

When a church member was lighting up cross-shaped candles in the funeral parlor, an employee immediately ordered to stop, threatening not to cremate the deceased’s body if the believer disobeyed. During the following two days, government officials monitored the venue, dispersing believers who sang hymns and removing religious items.

Tagged With: Authorities Against Christians

bw-profile
Wang Yichi

Uses a pseudonym for security reasons.

Related articles

  • Jiangsu Province Launches New Crackdown on Christianity

    Jiangsu Province Launches New Crackdown on Christianity

  • Police Hunt for and Persecute Buyers of Religious Books

    Police Hunt for and Persecute Buyers of Religious Books

  • Reprisals Expand Against Catholics Rejecting Patriotic Church

    Reprisals Expand Against Catholics Rejecting Patriotic Church

  • Demolish or Sell! Three-Self Churches Dispersed in Jiangxi

    Demolish or Sell! Three-Self Churches Dispersed in Jiangxi

Keep Reading

  • Christians Forced to Choose Between State Benefits and Faith
    Christians Forced to Choose Between State Benefits and Faith

    Local officials throughout China are intimidating people of faith to renounce religion and start worshiping the Communist Party and its leaders, past and present.

  • In China, All Calls for Freedom Lead to Punishment
    In China, All Calls for Freedom Lead to Punishment

    The death of Li Wenliang, the whistleblower Wuhan doctor, stirred an online rebellion in China. But the regime promptly quashed people’s demands for free speech.

  • Henan House Church Pastor Sentenced to Five and a Half Years in Prison
    Henan House Church Pastor Sentenced to Five and a Half Years in Prison

    Trying to save his church’s cross from destruction and refusing to use services to spread “patriotic” propaganda were regarded as serious crimes.

  • CCP’s Fear of the Ten Commandments
    CCP’s Fear of the Ten Commandments

    Allowing the Chinese to worship only the Communist Party, authorities are ordering the removal of the fundamental law of Christianity from churches.

Primary Sidebar

Support Bitter Winter

Learn More

Follow us

Newsletter

Most Read

  • Chinese Muslims Told Mosques Should Preach Communism Too by Ma Wenyan
  • Hebei: Friends Pray in Your Home, the CCP Cuts Off Your Water and Electricity by Lai Mingxia
  • China’s “Query System for Islamic, Catholic, and Christian Clergy,” Another Tool for Repression by He Yuyan
  • Christian Students Asked to Study 20th Congress and Celebrate “Heroes” Who Betrayed the Church by Zhang Chunhua
  • Russia: Two Evangelical Pastors Prosecuted, Falsely Accused of Raising Money for the Ukrainian Army by Massimo Introvigne
  • Filipino Catholic Priest Arrested for Slandering Unrecognized Marian Apparitions by Massimo Introvigne
  • Pakistan, Young Christian Sentenced to Death for Blasphemy by Massimo Introvigne

CHINA PERSECUTION MAP -SEARCH NEWS BY REGION

clickable geographical map of china, with regions

Footer

EDITORIAL BOARD

Editor-in-Chief

MASSIMO INTROVIGNE

Director-in-Charge

MARCO RESPINTI

ADDRESS

CESNUR

Via Confienza 19,

10121 Turin, Italy,

Phone: 39-011-541950

E-MAIL

We welcome submission of unpublished contributions, news, and photographs. Each submission implies the authorization for us to edit and publish texts and photographs. We reserve the right to decide which submissions are suitable for publication. Please, write to INFO@BITTERWINTER.ORG Thank you.

Newsletter

LINKS

orlir-logo hrwf-logo cesnur-logo

Copyright © 2023 · Bitter Winter · PRIVACY POLICY· COOKIE POLICY