Concern rises in Wenzhou as Christianity booms in capitalist fashion(2)

Sanjiang Church from inside. Photo: Zhang Yu/GT

Legal destruction

Officials from Wenzhou's Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM), China's government approved Protestant church, however, do not share the indignation of local Christians.

Most of the churches facing demolition orders, including Sanjiang, are registered under the TSPM, while others are underground churches, also known as house churches.

"All the orders were issued in accordance with Zhejiang Province's 'three revise and one demolition' campaign. The governments' actions are completely legal," an official with TSPM, who refused to be named, told the Global Times in a phone interview.

According to an official document issued by the People's Government of Zhejiang Province in February 2013, "three revise and one demolition" is a three-year campaign aimed at hastening urbanization and "building a more beautiful Zhejiang."

The document urged local governments to carry out the campaign vigorously by "revising" old neighborhoods, old industrial sites and urban villages and demolishing illegal structures by 2015. The official said the movement didn't touch upon religious buildings last year. This year religious buildings are being targeted too.

"All the churches that received demolition orders are illegal. Some have illegal structures and some were built without a permit as a religious building. To solve the problem quickly, some local governments ordered churches that do not have a religious permit to take down the crosses to avoid being too conspicuous," the TSPM official said.

"So far, no crosses have actually been taken down. We understand that crosses are a symbol of Christian belief so we are negotiating," he said.

An official with the Bureau of Ethnic and Religious Affairs of Wenzhou responded similarly.

Sanjiang Church is quadruple the size permitted by the government, and has been built on agricultural land where religious buildings are not allowed to be built, a document by the Yongjia government said.

The local government has agreed not to dismantle the entire Sanjiang Church but only remove part of its annex after negotiations with the church.

Oversized churches

Local Christians are not happy with the official replies.

"We admit that many churches are not completely legal. This is because the provincial government hardly ever grants permits for large churches. Since there is a need for larger churches here in Wenzhou, it's been a common practice for churches to be built larger than is permitted and local governments always cut us some slack," Zheng Leguo said.

A man in charge of a church in Haining's Dingqiao county, who was verbally asked to take down its cross, also admits the church hasn't got all the required permits.

"It takes years to finish all the applications, so we applied and built the church at the same time," the man surnamed Li said.

The national regulations state that the permit to build a church needs to be granted by the provincial government. To reach that level, an applicant has to start with the neighborhood committee or village then go up to get the approval of the county, city and provincial level religious affairs offices. Approvals from the urban planning bureaus and housing administration offices are also required.