For background on Orthodox Christianity in China, see here.
For previous ChristianPersecution.com coverage of the persecution of Christians in China, see here.
“Wuhan Authorities Conducted a Specialized Inspection of Churches for Illegal Religious Publications,” China Aid, February 23, 2024:
(Wuhan, Hubei Province – February 23, 2024) In a major city in China, the government-approved Committee of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement of the Protestant Churches in China and the China Christian Council, referred to as the “Two organizations of Christianity/Lianghui”, recently conducted a strict inspection of religious-related publications. A city-wide inspection of religious publications in churches has been conducted, and churches were prohibited from possessing “unofficial versions” of religious literature. It was stated that this action is done to ensure “ideological security.”
Members of the inspection team went deep into various churches and major venues for religious activities in the city to gain a detailed understanding of the channels for the obtainment and sales of religious publications at each venue, and to focus on checking whether there were unauthorized printing of books, newspapers, and internal informational publications, and whether there were cases of possession, retention, dissemination, or use of illegal publications. Additionally, they conducted propaganda on relevant laws, regulations, and policies.
The inspection team members requested that the responsible persons at each venue raise awareness, actively play their roles, educate believers to fully understand the harm of illegal religious publications, guide grassroots venues to consciously resist illegal religious publications, and ensure that unlawful religious publications are not printed, displayed, disseminated, but are promptly sealed and appropriately destroyed.
The specialized inspection, lasting half a month, visited 12 grassroots venues, with a total of 30 personnel conducting inspections.
The report stated: As of now, no illegal religious publications have been found in grassroots churches.
The inspection team stated that in the next step, the Christian community in Wuhan can expect “occasional visits to venues to be a normality,” there will also be annual inspections of publications, continuous purification of the cultural environment of grassroots venues, education of believers to stay away from illegal religious publications, and to ensure ideological security in the Christian ideological field of the city….
