Sun Yongyao (孙永耀) was the pastor of the Funan County Christian Church, a government-sanctioned Three-Self congregation in Funan County, Anhui Province. He was taken into criminal detention on October 19, 2019, the day after local authorities demolished the church’s 3,000-seat building during a worship service, according to ChinaAid and other faith-based monitoring outlets.
ChinaAid reported that the demolition took place on October 18, 2019 and that no legal documents authorizing it were shown to the church beforehand. International Christian Concern reported that members knelt before demolition crews asking them to stop.
At around 3 p.m. on October 19, Sun Yongyao was criminally detained along with Geng Yimin — identified in ChinaAid’s Chinese-language report as the church committee director — and other church committee members. The reported suspicion was 聚众扰乱社会秩序罪, “gathering a crowd to disturb social order.”
ChinaAid president Bob Fu said at the time that the detainees remained in custody and could face indictment. Those statements are attributed to him and do not establish a later conviction.
Status and evidence limits
No public information about a trial, conviction, sentence, release, or current custody status was located beyond the October 2019 detention. This profile therefore does not describe Sun Yongyao as currently imprisoned. Geng Yimin is a separate individual with his own profile.
Media archive: Sun Yongyao / 孙永耀 — Media Archive