• 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
    • OP-EDS
    • FEATURED
    • TESTIMONIES
  • 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 / Testimonies China

Buddhist Abbot Rendered Homeless by Authorities

11/30/2018Jiang Tao |

After the temple was sealed off in March this year and all the monks were driven away, one of them kept coming back since he had nowhere else to live. Each time he was discovered by local officials who ordered him to leave.

Interior view of Qigu Temple
The interior of the Qigu Temple in Xinmi.

Yuan Hongli (pseudonym) grew up in a Buddhist household and was an abbot at the Qigu Temple in Henan’s Xinmi city. After the new Regulations on Religious Affairs came into effect at the beginning of the year, the temple was sealed off by late March.

The temple’s main entrance
The Qigu Temple’s main entrance has been sealed off.

The local government personnel locked all three doors at the temple and shut it down on the grounds that it was an “unlicensed religious place.” The temple’s resident monks, including Mr. Yuan, were driven out as well.

All three doors have been sealed off
The local government personnel locked all three doors at the temple

However, the believers nearby were eager to meet again, and two weeks later, Mr. Yuan returned to remove the seal of the temple. But as soon as he did that, over a dozen officials from the Religious Affairs Bureau and police station showed up at the site.

They confiscated nearly 500 religious books from the temple and ordered Mr. Yuan to move the donation box, incense burners, and kneeling cushions into the temple’s courtyard. After that, they told him and another monk to gather their belongings and leave the temple.

The incense burners have been abandoned
The abandoned incense burners.

The two wandered about for ten days but did not find any other residence. So, they returned to the temple once more and continued to live there secretly for a few months until local officials discovered them again.  They said that central government representatives were coming to conduct an inspection and threatened to arrest anyone who dared to get into the temple.

Mr. Yuan was expelled from the temple for the third time, but he returned to it again after a while since he could not find a place to live. The temple was raided yet again when the township secretary brought nearly 20 personnel with him. This time, the authorities took away the keys to the temple’s doors as well.

The Qigu Temple’s reconstruction story inscribed on a stone monument
The Qigu Temple’s reconstruction story inscribed on a stone monument.

The abbot is living outside the temple at the moment. “We left home to worship Buddha. We really have nowhere to go whenever the government forces us to leave the temples,” said the abbot. “At times, we find shelter at the home of a believer for a few days or take temporary shelter at another temple. But we are mostly drifting about aimlessly. Our meals and lodging aren’t guaranteed.”

Reported by Jiang Tao

Tagged With: Buddhism, Regulation on Religious Affairs

Jiang Tao profile picture
Jiang Tao

Uses a pseudonym for security reasons.

Related articles

  • Religious Books Burned or Trashed, Printers Jailed

    Religious Books Burned or Trashed, Printers Jailed

  • They Demolished a Temple and Put up a Parking Lot

    They Demolished a Temple and Put up a Parking Lot

  • Elderly Man Dies Protesting Temple Demolition in Anhui Province

    Elderly Man Dies Protesting Temple Demolition in Anhui Province

  • The Xuanzang Temple Incident: Who Was the Agent Provocateur?

    The Xuanzang Temple Incident: Who Was the Agent Provocateur?

Keep Reading

  • Historical Buddhist Temple Closed in Jiangxi
    Historical Buddhist Temple Closed in Jiangxi

    Not even the fact that it once hosted CCP General Luo Binghui has saved Tianci Ancient Temple in Ji’an.

  • Greater China Buddhism: Lessons from a Defunct Religious Movement
    Greater China Buddhism: Lessons from a Defunct Religious Movement

    The story of an extinct group, also called the “Three Periods of Pudu,” is taught to those in charge of fighting “cults” in China. But why is it still relevant?

  • Guan Yin Citta: Leader Dies, Crackdown on Buddhist Movement Continues
    Guan Yin Citta: Leader Dies, Crackdown on Buddhist Movement Continues

    In 2019, Bitter Winter revealed a secret plan to eradicate the group, whose leader died on November 10, in China. It did not succeed.

  • USCIRF Charges China’s Authorized Religious Bodies as Communist Party Accomplices
    USCIRF Charges China’s Authorized Religious Bodies as Communist Party Accomplices

    A new report exposes the five authorized religions’ “complicity in the government’s systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom.”

Primary Sidebar

Support Bitter Winter

Learn More

Follow us

Newsletter

Most Read

  • France Joins China and Russia by Introducing Special Police Techniques Against “Cults” by Massimo Introvigne
  • “Socialist Spiritual Civilization”: The Great Comeback of an Old CCP Concept by Hu Zimo
  • The Fate of Tibet After the Inevitable: A Tibetan Opinion by Ugyen Gyalpo
  • Ngaba Prefecture, Sichuan: Massive Re-Education to Prevent Tibetan Self-Immolations by Lopsang Gurung
  • Wang Hai: Miao Christian Pastor Still Harassed and Investigated by Mo Yuan
  • L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology, and the Visual Arts. 7. The Scientologist as Artist by Massimo Introvigne
  • Mark Fino: No Asylum in Japan for Evangelist Threatened in Bangladesh by Tom Eskildsen

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