Editor's note: This article is Part 1 of a two-part series based on The Christian Post's interview with Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri of Beijing Zion Church following his release from a Chinese prison and return to the United States. Read Part 2 here. Watch the interview here. WASHINGTON — When Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri of Beijing Zion Church found himself confined to a squalid cell at the Beihai No.
2 Detention Center in the southern Chinese province of Guangxi, he remembered the sign of Jonah. "I am driven away from your sight; yet I shall again look upon your holy temple," were the words the prophet prayed from the belly of the fish before he was delivered.
Jin said they were also the words the Lord gave him last October on the first day of his imprisonment, which would extend for 266 days and draw international attention.
During a recent interview with The Christian Post at the Museum of the Bible, the founder of one of the largest unregistered "house church" networks in China offered new details of his personal testimony, reflections on the theology of suffering, and insight into the plight of persecuted Christians, such as the eight Zion Church leaders who still remain detained.
"It is only when you undergo persecution for righteousness' sake, or suffer for the name of Christ, that you experience the true blessings promised by the Lord," he said through his daughter, Grace Jin Drexel, who served as his translator for the interview. On Oct.
10, 2025, police surrounded Jin's home in the large port city of Beihai, where he had moved from Beijing after years of growing pressure from Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials, which included shutting the church down in 2018 when leaders refused to install facial recognition cameras. As he was