Pastor Lian Xuliang (廉旭亮) of the Xi’an Church of Abundance returned home on September 5, more than four years after Chinese authorities began a fraud prosecution against him, his father and a fellow preacher over the unregistered house church’s ministry.
Weiquanwang, a Chinese human-rights monitor, reported the release on September 7 in a notice a few lines long; ChinaAid carried the report on September 8 and 10. Xi’an police, prosecutors and courts have said nothing about why Lian was let out, whether the case against him is closed, or the current legal status of the two people arrested with him.
Lian was detained on August 17, 2022, when the Chanba Ecological District branch of the Xi’an Public Security Bureau placed him, his father — founding pastor Lian Changnian — and preacher Fu Juan under residential surveillance at a designated location on suspicion of “fraud.” Two days later, the Xi’an Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau banned the Church of Abundance, declaring the congregation — which had met since the early 1990s — an illegal social organization because it operated as an unregistered social organization. Lian Xuliang had been ordained as a pastor in the fall of 2021; his father serves as a senior pastor in Henan’s China Gospel Fellowship, an underground church network.
The three were formally arrested in March 2023 with the approval of the procuratorate. On April 12, 2025, authorities changed their compulsory measures, placing them under residential surveillance at a designated location while releasing them on bail pending trial. On July 9, 2025, a local court in Xi’an heard the case but issued no verdict. On November 2, 2025, while the defendants were awaiting the verdict, authorities detained all three again — Lian Changnian, then 71 and undergoing hospital treatment for deteriorating health, was taken from his home and held at the Weiyang District Detention Center in Xi’an.
As of publication, it remains unclear whether the case is still pending and what the legal status of Lian Changnian and Fu Juan now is. No one has been able to confirm that Lian’s father also returned home. ChinaAid noted that the three reportedly experienced varying degrees of torture and mistreatment during their residential surveillance.
Lian’s release stands in contrast to the broader pattern this month of detentions targeting house churches, including the taking of Xi’an Light of Zion pastor Jiao Yong, the reported detentions at Beijing’s Jiaquan Church, the Jinzhai house-church raid, and the Early Rain teahouse raid and taking of Yan Hong.
Sources
- ChinaAid: “Chinese authorities release pastor after 4-year case against house church” (Sept 8, 2026; citing Weiquanwang) — chinaaid.org
- The Red Lighthouse (The Watchman): “Pastor Lian Xuliang Walked Out of a Xi’an Detention Center on September 5, Four Years After the Police Took Him” (Sept 17, 2026) — theredlighthouse.org
- USCIRF Forb Victims Database: Lian Xuliang — uscirf.gov