Chinese house church pastor Ezra Jin Mingri, the founder of Beijing Zion Church, has been released from detention in China and has arrived in Los Angeles.
Jin was freed directly from custody on Saturday and taken to the United States, according to ChinaAid, a Texas-based Christian advocacy organization.
Chinese authorities reportedly told Jin that his release came after discussions between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping and was framed as a goodwill gesture around America’s Independence Day.
The Associated Press reported that Jin has since been reunited with his family. In a statement, Jin’s family said the release unfolded rapidly and expressed gratitude to Trump.
The family also said the release would not have been possible without Xi’s direct intervention. They voiced hope that the decision could mark a positive shift for religious believers in China and for U.S.-China relations.
In May, Grace Jin Drexel, Pastor Jin’s daughter, and Sebastien Lai, the son of imprisoned Hong Kong media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai, said they were relying on Trump to bring up both of their fathers’ cases during his visit to China.
After returning from his state visit to Beijing, Trump said he had discussed the detentions of both Jin and Lai with Xi. Trump told reporters that Xi said he would strongly consider Pastor Jin’s case, while describing Lai’s case as a difficult one.
Lai, 78, a former clothing businessman and publisher of a Hong Kong newspaper critical of Beijing, was sentenced in February to 20 years in prison.
Jin was detained in October along with 17 other leaders of the underground Zion Church in what advocates described as one of China’s largest crackdowns on a single church in decades. The arrests prompted renewed concern over the Chinese government’s restrictions on religious freedom.
After Chinese authorities targeted Zion Church in 2018, Jin moved his family to the United States but later returned to China despite the risks. His daughter said last fall that she had not seen her father in six years.
Jin, 56, established Zion Church in 2007 after studying at Fuller Theological Seminary in California. He became a Christian after participating in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and later grew Zion Church into one of the largest house church congregations in China.
Religious freedom advocates welcomed Jin’s release while calling attention to other detained church members. Maya Wang of Human Rights Watch wrote on X that at least eight members of Zion Church, one of China’s largest underground or house churches, remain detained and should all be freed.
