The Chinese government treats Christianity as if it were an alien element and a threat to the traditional culture of the people. In reality, Christianity has been present in China for many centuries, much longer than the Communist regime has been in power. The first Orthodox Christians entered China in 1685. After the Orthodox Church in China was almost wiped out during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, it experienced a revival in the 1980s.
However, Orthodox Christians and all Christians in China are now in extreme danger because of the Chinese government’s increasing tendency to make demands of the Churches and assert direct control over them. The Chinese government shows clear signs of intending to wipe out Christianity in the country altogether.
The Order of Saint Andrew the Apostle, Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, remains in prayer for the Christians of China and urgently requests the Chinese government to grant official recognition to the Chinese Orthodox Church, and full religious freedom to all the Christians of the country.
“Chinese Christians flee China amid crackdown on church: ‘No longer safe for us’” by Caleb Parke, Fox News, July 8, 2019:
As China continues its crackdown on religion, Christians in the Communist country are fleeing for their lives.
China’s ruling Communist Party has carried out a widespread crackdown on all religious institutions in recent years, including bulldozing churches and mosques, barring Tibetan children from Buddhist religious studies and incarcerating more than a million members of Islamic ethnic minorities in what are termed “re-education centers.” President Xi Jinping , who is also party leader, has ordered that all religions must “Sinicize” to ensure they are loyal to the officially atheistic party or face the wrath of the Communist regime.
Liao Qiang, who fled from Early Rain Covenant Church after it was raided and targeted by the government for its opposition to Xi and the party, is now in Taipei, Taiwan, hoping to get asylum in the United States until China reverses the anti-religious surveillance.
More than 100 members of Early Rain were taken into custody from the church or their homes on Dec. 9 and 10, according to Human Rights Watch. Those detained included Wang Yi, the pastor, who made a point of holding a prayer service on June 4 each year to commemorate the 1989 bloody crackdown on democracy protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, which China’s government has tried to erase from history. Since then, they have been under constant Orwellian watch under the state.
Ren Ruiting, Liao’s 23-year-old daughter, told the Associated Press she had to report her whereabouts to police using social media whenever she left her home and was informed that her safety would not be guaranteed.
“That’s when I knew it was no longer safe for us here, and that my children were most in danger,” Liao said after Sunday’s service, attended by about 30 people, at the small Reformed Presbyterian Xinan Church in Taipei….
