• 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 / Testimonies China

CCP Goes After Church Venues in Disrepair

02/17/2019Wang Yichi |

Believers light a bonfire and hold a gathering outdoors
Believers light a bonfire and hold a gathering outdoors.

Perfectly functional, or barely functional, the Chinese government will go after any religious meeting site.

Considering China’s ongoing anti-religion campaign, it comes as no surprise that it’s refusing to approve applications to build and refurbish existing religious venues. After all, it goes against its repeated destruction and demolition of holy sites. As a result, Christians are resorting to meeting in buildings that have fallen into disrepair.

But now the Chinese authorities are coming for those buildings, too. And believers who hold their gatherings in a dilapidated building are finding themselves in dire circumstances – like those at Chenqiao Church in Zhongmou county, under the jurisdiction of Zhengzhou city in the central province of Henan.

Due to the old age of Chenqiao’s Three-Self church, Pastor Mr. Chen and fellow believers were planning to invest more than 600,000 RMB (about $89,000) to rebuild the church on its original site. In early March 2018, Mr. Chen and believers started the demolition and reconstruction work, but they were soon obstructed by the township’s Religious Affairs Office and police station. Officials claimed they must obtain approval from the county’s Religious Affairs Bureau to rebuild the church.

The proclamation from the head of the county’s “Two Christian Councils” – the China Christian Council and the Three-Self Patriotic Movement – was that religious belief is restricted by state policies and churches aren’t allowed to rebuild, even if they apply for a permit.

During this period, believers went to the county’s Bureau of Letters and Visits to report the situation, and request permission from the government to tear down the dilapidated building and rebuild the church. However, their efforts were to no avail; the reconstruction work continued to be obstructed by the township government. Believers had no choice but to hold their gatherings outdoors.

In late October, with the weather getting colder, Mr. Chen and believers used makeshift materials to build a temporary building with five rooms for their gatherings. But the township government and police station kept a close eye on them and demanded that they make fire-control improvements on the grounds that a fire hazard existed and ordered Mr. Chen to demolish the makeshift building within three days.

Bitter Winter has repeatedly reported on similar cases. Catholic, Christian and even Buddhist venues have all encountered the same predicament.

Jinquan Pavilion is a Buddhist temple located in Xianyou county under the jurisdiction of Putian city in China’s southeast Fujian Province. Having fallen into disrepair over the years, the wood beams became damaged and rotten, and leaking occurred whenever it rained. In November 2018, the temple’s head submitted a reconstruction application to the local village committee, and it was approved. While construction was underway, more than a dozen personnel from the local Land Management Bureau came and aggressively smashed things everywhere, and threatened to break the vehicle if the driver did not pour out the cement. Having been obstructed by the authorities, the reconstruction of the temple was forced to stop.

Afterward, the temple’s head submitted an application to rebuild the temple, but various government departments passed the buck back and forth and didn’t approve it.

Reported by Wang Yichi

Tagged With: Anti-Religious Campaigns, Chinese Communist Party, House Churches

bw-profile
Wang Yichi

Uses a pseudonym for security reasons.

Related articles

  • Qu’ran Burns in Sweden: China Protests—Hypocritically

    Qu’ran Burns in Sweden: China Protests—Hypocritically

  • Burning Effigies: China Threatens American Academic Miles Yu

    Burning Effigies: China Threatens American Academic Miles Yu

  • Zero COVID: Chinese Propaganda Tries to Rewrite History

    Zero COVID: Chinese Propaganda Tries to Rewrite History

  • Stricter Rules on Private Tutoring Protect Ideology Rather than Parents

    Stricter Rules on Private Tutoring Protect Ideology Rather than Parents

Keep Reading

  • No Sex Please, We’re Chinese: Crackdown on the Oldest Student Sexology Association in China
    No Sex Please, We’re Chinese: Crackdown on the Oldest Student Sexology Association in China

    The Undergraduate Sexology Association of Central China Normal University in Wuhan was told the CCP suspects “foreign infiltrations” when sex is studied.

  • Hu Xinyu’s Body “Found”: When the Cure is Worse than the Disease
    Hu Xinyu’s Body “Found”: When the Cure is Worse than the Disease

    The police says the 15-yer-old student committed suicide. But the story the authorities tell fuels the scandal rather than suppressing it.

  • The Italian Job: How the CCP Laundered Mafia Money in Italy
    The Italian Job: How the CCP Laundered Mafia Money in Italy

    A massive Italian Tax Police investigation unveiled a 15-billion-euro money laundering operation involving Italian mafia, Colombian drug barons, and Putin’s oligarchs. 

  • The Suicide of the Pink-Haired Girl: How the CCP Exploited a Tragedy
    The Suicide of the Pink-Haired Girl: How the CCP Exploited a Tragedy

    A 24-year-old student was insulted for months on social media and committed suicide. The Two Sessions’ answer: more surveillance.

Primary Sidebar

Support Bitter Winter

Learn More

Follow us

Newsletter

Most Read

  • Wenzhou, Parents Asked to Sign a “Kindergarten Family Commitment Not to Believe in Religion” by He Yuyan
  • Empowering the Next Generation of Uyghurs to Challenge China’s Genocide by Marco Respinti
  • China’s New Crackdown Targets “Self-Media” by Zhou Kexin
  • Thailand and Pakistan: No Friends of Uyghur Refugees by Marco Respinti
  • Russia, Hare Krishnas Accused of Planning Attacks Against Military Conscription Bureaus by Massimo Introvigne
  • Why “Cults” (and “Brainwashing”) Do Not Exist by Massimo Introvigne
  • A Uyghur View: Putin Got His Arrest Warrant—Xi Jinping Should Be Next by Kok Bayraq

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