According to Voice of the Martyrs Korea representative Dr. Hyun Sook Foley, local government officials hired crane operators to demolish the crosses.  

This wasn’t the first time the crosses had been forcibly removed from these churches. “Officials previously removed the cross of Canghe Church on June 30, 2014,” says Representative Foley. “Later, the church quietly installed a much smaller cross. But now even that cross has been torn down. Shuixin X’tian Church also had its cross torn down by authorities in 2014.” 

Representative Foley says that on January 16, members of Canghe Church filed a report with the local public security bureau stating that their church cross had been stolen. In response, Wenzhou Public Security Bureau’s Longwan District branch issued the notice, “The stolen cross of Canghe Church does not fall under the jurisdiction of this public security bureau. The public safety organs will not be handling the investigation.” 

Representative Foley says that this newest wave of cross removals has not caught pastors in Wenzhou by surprise. “Previously, Wenzhou Pastor Yan Xiaojie had posted on social media, ‘The evil wave will re-emerge in 2021.’ He wrote, ‘Again, there is forced demolishment, illegal demolishment, indiscriminate demolishment, demolishment at night.’ And indeed, these latest cross removals happened in the darkness.”  

Representative Foley notes that both Yongzhong Canghe Church and Shuixin X’tian Church have long histories. “Official records show that both churches are more than a century old,” she said. The Christian population is Wenzhou is reported to be more than one million, with the number of officially registered churches more than one thousand. 

Cross removal in Wenzhou enters its seventh year this month, says Representative Foley. “From February 2014 to January 2016, Xia Baolong, the Zhejiang provincial secretary, issued the order to remove all crosses in the province. In April 2014, authorities removed the cross from Wenzhou Sanjiang Christian Church and several other churches. Thousands of worshippers camped out around the church to protest the demolition. Within two years, authorities forcibly removed crosses from more than one thousand churches, and there were 20 forced disappearances of ministers from Wenzhou in one six–month period. These two recent overnight raids on the crosses of these five churches shows that cross removal is not a thing of the past. We need to be diligent to stand with and pray for the churches of Wenzhou and all across China.” 

Individuals interested in learning more about Voice of the Martyrs Korea’s work in partnership with the house church Christians of China can visit https://vomkorea.com/en/project/china/.