Chinese Christians flock to churches for Easter services

Increasing number of young worshippers shows Christianity's growth in popularity in China.

Crowds fill the compund of South Cathedral in Beijing to mark Easter Sunday. (Photo by ucanews.com)

Beijing:  It was standing room only for many Catholics this Easter Sunday, in Beijing's South Cathedral.

Locals crammed in for three consecutive Chinese-language Masses from 6:30 a.m., the pavements outside this hodgepodge church of traditional Chinese gateways and baroque styling became a mass of people emptying into the street just a few blocks southwest of Tiananmen Square.

By the church's doorway, large screens showed consecutive Easter Masses for those who had come too late to squeeze inside.

"There's nowhere to sit," said a mother holding her young child as an usher helped her find a spot at the back of the crammed cathedral, the oldest in Beijing.

In the capital of a country that has faced recent criticism for dwindling religious rights there were few immediate signs of the confrontations between a growing Christian population and an increasingly hard-line, atheist Communist Party.

In St. Joseph's, another cathedral on Beijing's popular shopping hub Wangfujing Street, crowds of up to 700 people crammed in for each of six Easter Sunday services.

Two English Masses featured as many Chinese as it did foreigners who together sang the Gloria, Kyrie and Agnus Dei in Latin.

Almost all locals in attendance were younger than 40 years old, a sign of the growing attraction of the church among China's younger generation.

In many churches around the country, authorities try to separate Chinese Masses from those organized by foreigners amid enduring fears within the party that "external forces" will work with Chinese Christians and challenge the political status quo.

In Beijing, church services designed for expats are in theory not allowed to admit Chinese nationals — those attending must show their passports.

In sensitive areas like cities on the border with North Korea, churches run by South Koreans include Mass sheets that declare, "no Chinese nationals permitted."

The government's paranoia over foreign infiltration has defined the government's relations with the Vatican.

Archbishop Joseph Li Shan of Beijing's South Cathedral, also known as the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, was recognized by both the Vatican and the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, the state body that maintains control of the church in China. But bishop appointments remain a key sticking point after Beijing previously tried appointing them without the pope's consent. Formal ties have remained elusive ever since the Communists took power in 1949.

While Beijing's churches feature notice boards with messages from the pope, stalls selling rosary beads and Bibles in Chinese, outside of these ecclesiastical compounds there were almost no signs Easter was taking place.

For non-Christian Chinese, Easter is a Western holiday that has grown in popularity as a commercial event alongside Christmas and Halloween.

Many people here still have little understanding of Easter's religious significance.

"Why is fuhuojie called Easter?" Wrote one user on the Chinese microblogging site Weibo, using the Chinese word for Easter, whose literal meaning is 'to repeat life holiday.'

Despite the government's efforts to minimize understanding of Easter — the school curriculum glosses over its significance and the state-run media did not cover events in China — churches themselves have been remarkably successful at circumventing the atheist government.

About 20,000 new Catholics have been baptized in China during each of the past two Easters, according to Faith Press, a Catholic newspaper based in Hebei province that receives data on new baptisms from churches across China.

Overall, there are an estimated 12 million Catholics in the country, according to the Hong Kong Diocese Holy Spirit Study Center — some estimates put the total number of Christians as high as 100 million — higher than the 6 million reported by the Chinese government whose figure is widely believed understated.

But amid what has been the largest migration in the history of the world in recent decades, it remains difficult to know the extent to which swelling congregations in city churches have come at the expense of those in dwindling villages across the country.

With China preparing to conduct it's first ever study on children left behind in rural areas, often looked after by their grandparents, a seminar in Tianjin heard on March 26 there may be 100 million "left-behind children" in the country — one-third of all Chinese minors.

"The 'left children' phenomenon exists due to deeper economic and social reasons," Liu Xinyu, founder of the children's agency On the Road to School, told the nationalistic state-run tabloid Global Times.

Church leaders here often cite these very same social problems as a key driver of evangelism in a country where rampant growth and atheism have combined to create an often-cited 'spiritual void.' In other words, the atheist party's focus on economic growth at all costs may have pushed many Chinese into the arms of the church.

In an apparent bid to curb Christianity, Zhejiang province in particular has tried to minimize the appearance of church crosses in densely populated Christian cities like the wealthy eastern port of Wenzhou, removing over 1,700 crosses in this province since the end of 2013.

The growing problems facing China's embattled Christians were not far beneath the surface during Holy Week. German President Joachim Gauck, a former Lutheran priest, conducted a state visit to China last week that attempted to serve regular reminders to the Chinese government that Berlin stood alongside religious groups.

His delegation included Catholic and Protestant representatives from Germany.

On Holy Thursday, the final day of the visit, Gauck met with Bishop Anthony Dang — recognized by the Vatican and Beijing — at the Francis of Assisi Cathedral in Xian.

The German embassy was closed for Easter and not available to comment on private discussions between Gauck and Chinese officials including President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Li Keqiang but he reportedly raised the delicate issue of religious rights.

The rare visit by a visiting Western head of state to a church in China came the day after police released Christian lawyer Zhang Kai.

Following seven months of detention in Wenzhou after he offered legal aid to churches trying to rebuff authorities wanting them removed, Protestant Zhang said he was heading back to his home in Inner Mongolia — presumably to celebrate Easter in private.

"Many thanks to my friends and family for care and comfort," he said in a statement ahead of the Easter weekend.

"Thanks to Wenzhou police for taking care of me this time."

Source: UCAN