Chinese authorities reportedly detained many pastors and church workers from Beijing Jiaquan Church, ChinaAid has said.
The US-based Christian advocacy group said it received first-hand reports from Beijing on 21 September and was still confirming the number detained, locations and any charges.
ChinaAid also said it was checking whether Jiaquan congregations outside Beijing had been affected. The organisation has not published a confirmed detainee list or disclosed their whereabouts. Its report did not cite a public response from Chinese authorities.
Jiaquan church has been operating for more than 20 years and serves more than 1,000 believers. Church leaders have also run Noah Music School in Beijing for more than a decade, training worship leaders and musicians for house churches around China.
ChinaAid Seeks Details on Reported Jiaquan Detentions
ChinaAid founder and President Bob Fu said his organisation was 'urgently concerned for the safety, health and legal rights of every Jiaquan pastor and church co-worker who has been taken away.'
Fu called on Chinese authorities to identify those detained and disclose where they were being held. He also asked officials to explain the legal basis for any detention and allow access to independent lawyers.
ChinaAid published its report three days before Chinese President Xi Jinping's 24 September summit with US President Donald Trump in Washington. The organisation said it had no evidence linking the reported Jiaquan detentions directly to the summit.
The report also followed a religious-freedom forum in Washington on 16 September. Advocates discussed cases involving Christians and other religious groups in China ahead of Xi's visit.
Fu described the reported detentions as part of broader pressure on prominent urban house churches. That remains ChinaAid's assessment, not an independently established motive for the reported action.
House churches operate outside the government-approved Three-Self Patriotic Movement and other state-supervised Protestant structures. China's rules require registered religious organisations to operate under government registration and oversight.
Zion and Early Rain Churches Have Faced Earlier Police Action
The Jiaquan reports follow major cases involving Beijing Zion Church and Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu. Authorities began detaining Zion Church members across several provinces in October 2025.
Eighteen Zion leaders were formally arrested in November 2025. ChinaAid said on 10 September 2026 that eight Zion pastors and co-workers remained detained in Beihai, Guangxi, facing 'fraud' and 'illegal business operations' charges.
Early Rain Covenant Church has also faced repeated police action. On 14 June, authorities disrupted a church gathering at a hotel in Jiangyou, Sichuan Province. ChinaAid said 32 members were detained for more than 12 hours.
A later ChinaAid update said police detained 11 people during a reading gathering in Chengdu on 11 September. Nine were released earlier, while Elder Wu Wuqing and church member Shen Xiaoqing served 10 days of administrative detention.
ChinaAid said the two were fined for allegedly 'illegally organising proselytising activities' and were released by 23 September.
Authorities banned Early Rain following mass arrests in December 2018. Founding pastor Wang Yi was sentenced in December 2019 to nine years in prison after being convicted of 'inciting subversion of state power' and 'illegal business operations.'
Other Church Cases Raise Questions Over Legal Process
Pressure surrounding house-church cases has also affected lawyers. Ruth Wang, who represented Zion Church members, left mainland China with her family after pressure on her law firm.
Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council said it was handling Wang's case through an existing mechanism. Wang has explored possible resettlement options outside Taiwan, including the US and Canada.
In Xi'an, Pastor Lian Xuliang returned home on 5 September after more than four years of proceedings involving his unregistered Church of Abundance. ChinaAid, citing rights monitor Weiquanwang, said the case involved fraud allegations linked to church ministry.
ChinaAid said the case status remained unclear after Lian's release. It also said the legal status of the two other defendants was not publicly known.
Church in Chains, citing church accounts and ChinaAid, reported allegations that Lian and two other church figures suffered starvation, beatings, forced ingestion of unidentified drugs and prolonged denial of toilet access. Those allegations have not been independently verified.
