Chinese Christians, both third-generation believers and the newly converted, flocked to China's official and underground churches to celebrate Christmas Sunday and Monday.
"Religion is very important to me. It's more important than life. Jesus gave us our lives," said Zhang Jinlian, a 34-year-old farmer who traveled for two hours from Beijing's suburbs to attend Mass at the Nantang Catholic Church in central Beijing.
Zhang, whose village does not have a proper church, came to Beijing with five fellow villagers.
She missed the early morning Chinese Mass, but stayed through the English Mass, listening intently as she knelt with her hands pressed together in front of her.
"I don't understand English, but the meaning is still the same," Zhang said.
Brought up Catholic by her parents and grandparents, Zhang said Christianity is becoming more popular with a relative relaxation in controls compared to when she was growing up during the Cultural Revolution.
"In the past, my parents only taught me the Bible at night in our home. They warned me not to discuss our faith with anyone to avoid trouble. But now 99.5 percent of the people in our village openly believe in (Christian) religion," Zhang said.
"The village Communist leaders don't believe in it because they're not supposed to, but even their family members are Catholics."
Christianity is spreading in China, despite a crackdown on unregistered Protestant and Catholic churches in the past year. The government is becoming increasingly wary of religious groups growing into defiant organizations such as the banned Falungong movement.
Underground parishes - called "family gatherings" or "house churches" - rented hotel halls in Beijing to hold services on Christmas Eve Sunday.
Several house churches combined their parishes this year and held a gathering for about 350 people at a hotel, local Christians said.
Despite the Chinese government's claims it allows religious freedom, many Christians still prefer to worship in underground churches, which do not register with the government and therefore operate outside the government's control.
"In official churches, they also speak about the Bible and praise the Lord, but whenever there are conflicts between the religion and the government, they never stand on the side of religion," a member of an underground parish said.
Christians arrested for evangelizing are accused of breaking the law even though the Bible encourages people to spread the gospel.
In church services at official churches, pastors and priests almost always mention the importance of loving the Communist Party in addition to Jesus and God.
"We're not saying we don't love the country or the government, but there is no need to speak of that in church," the underground parishioner said.
China officially estimates it has five million Catholics and 10 million Protestants, but the real figures are believed to be much higher.
A Hong Kong-based human rights group claims the total number of Chinese Catholics is 10 million and Protestants 30 million.
The government admits the number of people believing in Christianity is growing with an estimated 70,000 more Catholics each year nationwide.
But underground parishioners said many more unofficial worshippers remain uncounted.
In Beijing alone, the number of underground Protestant churches has grown to at least 1,000 compared to just 200 five years ago, but the number of official churches has stayed around eight, Christians said.
Fearful of the spread of unregistered groups, the government carried out a mass campaign this year which saw 1,200 places of worship, including temples, shut down in the eastern city of Wenzhou, Nearly 200 Protestants were also arrested in several provinces -- BEIJING (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
