Case Details and Biography of Zhou Zixun, Founder and Senior Pastor of Beijing Jiaquan Church, Who Was Arrested

(Rights Defense Network Information Center report) On November 8, 2026, this website learned of the case details and biography of Zhou Zixun, founder and senior pastor of Beijing Jiaquan Church, who was arrested. The information is reported as follows:

Zhou Zixun: Born in 1975, originally named Cui Xianfeng, place of origin unknown, a Christian, founder and senior pastor of Beijing Jiaquan Church, and a Chinese prisoner of conscience in custody.

He studied in the Department of Civil Engineering at Tsinghua University in his early years. During that time, he embraced the Christian faith and was baptized. Later, while in the second year of graduate school, he decided in his faith to become a preacher; in 1997, he married Choi Jinyoung, a Korean Christian sister. The following year, he and his wife went to Talbot School of Theology at Biola University in Southern California to study, and in 2003 he earned a Master of Divinity degree; in 2005, he was ordained as a pastor by the Evangelical Church Alliance in the United States; originally, both spouses could have remained in the United States after obtaining green cards and continued their pastoral ministry there, but while praying together about the direction of their future service, the couple felt called and decided to return to China to establish a church. So, at the end of November 2005, the two returned to China with their only child, who was just two and a half years old; in March 2006, the couple founded a house church and held their first Sunday worship service in the living room of a rented apartment in Beijing; in August of the same year, he designated the church, in an office building in Wangjing, as “Beijing Jiaquan Church,” and said that the two characters “Jiaquan” represented its “mission”: “to establish a healthy, urban, pastoral church for the Lord, and to reach all people, all society, and the whole world with the gospel”; during his 20 years of pastoral ministry, although the church was repeatedly suppressed because it was a house church, forcing the couple to change venues many times for worship and believers’ gatherings, and the authorities sealed off the large worship hall they had rented, he and the pastors and coworkers he later trained and gathered remained steadfast in their Christian faith, leading countless believers to be baptized into the Christian faith and feel that their lives had been renewed; in addition, while serving the church, he actively took part in discipleship training and theological education, and taught New Testament courses year-round at a theological seminary; however, in recent years, as the Chinese Communist authorities have continued to intensify their suppression of religious belief, especially with the escalation of pressure on Christian house churches, his church has also come under greater pressure and siege.

On September 4, 2026, about 50 church believers were setting up the venue in a hotel conference room in preparation for the church’s 20th anniversary celebration the following day, when more than 100 police officers suddenly raided the site. Seven coworkers were taken away, while most of the remaining believers were allowed to leave after their ID numbers, addresses, and telephone numbers were recorded; because he was visiting people elsewhere at the time and was not at the preparations, he was not taken away, but he was soon summoned to a police station that same day and has not returned since; on September 28, it became known that he and seven other coworkers had been criminally detained and held in a detention center. During this period, some coworkers were released, while others were arrested again; on October 23, 2026, seven coworkers were released on bail pending trial, while he was formally arrested on suspicion of “fraud”; in response, his wife issued an appeal asking the international community to pay close attention, and said the authorities’ purpose in this arrest was to treat the church believers’ donations as fraudulent proceeds, and that church coworkers and believers were questioned about the amount of the donations and how the funds were used. He is currently detained at the Shijingshan District Detention Center in Beijing.