Founder of one of China’s biggest underground churches freed, reunites with family in U.S.

ARCHIVES - Le pasteur Ezra Jin Mingri s'exprime lors d'une entrevue à l'Église de Sion de Pékin, en Chine, le mercredi 1er août 2018. (Photo AP/Ng Han Guan, archives)

Hong Kong — A pastor who founded one of China’s most prominent underground churches has been released from prison and reunited with his family in the United States, his daughter told CNN.

Ezra Jin, the founder of Zion Church, was among dozens of members caught up in a sweeping crackdown by Chinese authorities late last year.

Chinese authorities have long seen Christianity as an unwelcome foreign influence and a threat to government control. Religious practice is legal but tightly controlled and surveilled by the government, which registers “official” state-sanctioned churches.

Jin’s release came after U.S. President Donald Trump raised his case with Chinese leader Xi Jinping during a visit to Beijing in May.

“We are feeling so overwhelmed with joy. We thank God for this tremendous miracle,” his daughter Grace Jin Drexel said in a family statement to CNN.

“We also thank President Trump and his administration for their tremendous leadership,” she said, saying this could not have happened “without the direct intervention from Chairman Xi Jinping.”

Drexel said they hoped Jin’s release would be “a signal of a positive turn for people of faith in China and relations between our two nations.”

CNN has contacted the Chinese Foreign Ministry, as well as the White House and US State Department, for comment.

Jin founded Zion Church in Beijing in 2007. But as a crackdown on unregistered churches intensified in 2018, he and his family moved to the US, hoping to appease the Chinese authorities.

While his family stayed behind in the US, Jin returned to China as authorities continued to harass church members. He was later barred from leaving the country.

His daughter previously said they lost contact with Jin in October last year, triggering calls from Drexel, a staffer in the US Senate, for the Trump administration to help secure her father’s release.

Human rights groups welcomed Jin’s return but called on the Trump administration to do more, while urging Chinese authorities to release other church members in detention.

“While his release will bring much-needed comfort to his family, friends, and many supporters, we cannot forget the leaders and members of Zion Church who remain detained, and others associated with the church who still face serious criminal charges,” said Brian Tronic, director of Freedom House’s Free Them All: The Fred Hiatt Program to Free Political Prisoners.

Rev. Dr. Bob Fu, president of ChinaAid, an advocacy group promoting religious freedom in China, called Jin’s release “a tremendous victory,” but said work remained “until every prisoner of faith is free.”

“We respectfully call on President Trump and his Administration to continue making religious freedom and the release of all prisoners of faith a top priority in every engagement with Beijing,” he said.