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Pastor Held 266 Days in China Walks Free on the Fourth of July

Ezra Jin, founder of Beijing's largest house church, landed in Los Angeles after President Trump raised his case with Xi Jinping, but eight of his church's leaders are still behind bars.

July 17, 2026 · 2 min read · Kingdom Kutz Media Newsroom

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In the early hours of July 4, a plane touched down in Los Angeles carrying a man Chinese police had held for 266 days. Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri stepped off and into the arms of a family he had not lived with in eight years. Then he learned what day it was.

China's government called his release a goodwill gesture timed to America's Independence Day. For Jin, it was simpler than that. It was an answer to nine months of prayer from a congregation scattered across the world.

A Church Beijing Tried to Erase

Jin founded Zion Church in Beijing in 2007. It grew into one of China's largest unregistered Protestant networks, drawing an estimated 5,000 worshippers across cities including Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Chengdu. In 2018, authorities forcibly shut its main Beijing building after the congregation refused to install government surveillance cameras in its sanctuary.

The church kept meeting anyway, in homes and rented rooms, outside the state-approved system. On October 10, 2025, that defiance caught up with it. Police detained Jin and nearly 30 other pastors and staff in what NPR called the largest coordinated crackdown on an urban house church in 40 years. Jin and 17 others were formally arrested the next month on charges of illegally using information networks, a charge rights groups say was a pretext for preaching without state permission.

A President Raised His Name

Jin's case might have stayed buried in a Chinese court file if not for a conversation four thousand miles from his cell. During a May state visit to Beijing, President Trump told Xi Jinping he wanted the pastor released. Trump later told reporters what Xi said back to him.

He said he's gonna strongly consider the pastor.

Six weeks later, Jin was free. CNN reported that his family's statement thanked the president by name, while acknowledging the release could not have happened without Xi's own sign off. Whatever the politics behind it, a man who spent 266 days in a cell for holding church services was suddenly home.

Eight Still Waiting

The celebration in Los Angeles carries a weight the family has not set down. Fortify Rights and other advocacy groups confirm at least eight Zion Church leaders remain detained in China, some held since that October night. Jin's freedom is not their freedom, and everyone who knows his story knows it.

Scripture has a word for people in that position.

Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body.Hebrews 13:3 (KJV)

For nine months, a global network of Christians did exactly that for Ezra Jin, and it is hard not to see their prayers in the timing of a Fourth of July homecoming.

Now that same network turns its attention to the eight names still on the list. A church that survived a locked sanctuary, a raid, and a prison cell is not likely to stop praying now. Freedom for one pastor is a good day. It is not the finish line.

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