Large Crowds of Chinese Worshipers Flock to Churches for Christmas Eve Services

Thousands of Chinese packed churches Christmas Eve to pray and sing joyful hymns once banned by the Communist nation, and church officials said their congregations have grown since last June’s crackdown on the pro-democracy movement.

Large crowds of worshipers and the merely curious jammed into Beijing’s churches for evening Protestant services and midnight Mass at Catholic churches. Some services were so crowded that many worshipers were forced to wait outside in frigid weather.

Uniformed and plainclothes police were out in force at the churches and security precautions were substantially strengthened from last year, but there were no reported incidents.

Officials have been concerned about any large gatherings since last spring’s massive pro-democracy protests, and Beijing remains under martial law.

Officially atheist China has allowed a slow but tightly supervised rebirth of worship since the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, when religion was banned and radical young Red Guards ransacked thousands of churches, Buddhist temples and mosques.

“With different mouths, we speak with one voice to celebrate the birth of Christ,” said the Rev. Li Cangshen in his sermon at the Chongwenmen Protestant Church in downtown Beijing, the congregation attended by President Bush when he served as U.S. envoy to China in the 1970s.

From stooped grannies with head scarfs to toddlers in bright padded jackets, Chinese Christians joined choirs singing renditions of “Silent Night” and the Hallelujah chorus from Handel’s “Messiah.”

Clergy at several churches said the number of worshipers has increased since the military crackdown on the pro-democracy demonstrators last June, with many appearing to seek some form of spiritual comfort.

“We’ve had many more, especially the young,” said a Protestant minister. “And we are selling many more Bibles these days.”

A young railroad worker said he joined a Protestant church last fall because “I was looking for something to believe in.”

Beijing now has about 40,000 practicing Catholics and a dozen Catholic churches, and more than 5,000 Protestants with 10 churches.

The government allows Christian churches to operate, but insists they remain independent of foreign religious bodies. Nationwide membership in the government-sanctioned Catholic and Protestant church organizations is nearly 8 million.

Although most Chinese treat Christmas as another work day, it has become a secular and commercial holiday for some. Chinese now exchange millions of Christmas-type cards each December and many attend holiday parties where “Jingle Bells” is a popular tune.

The Protestant church has been allowed to print Bibles at a seminary in southern Nanjing. In Beijing, six new Catholic priests and seven new nuns took vows this year and two Catholic churches were reopened for the Christmas season.

In an interview last week with the state-run Beijing Evening News, Bishop Michael Fu Tieshan of the Beijing diocese said “the road of self-independence has made encouraging progress for Chinese Catholicism over the past 10 years.”

Still, there are periodic crackdowns on underground “house churches,” often run by Catholics who have refused to renounce links with the Vatican, with which China broke ties after the 1949 Communist revolution.

Several elderly priests remain in prison for refusing to renounce Rome. A slight warming toward the Vatican two years ago has vanished, with Beijing demanding as a precondition for improved relations that the Vatican sever its diplomatic links with Taiwan.

Missionaries, long equated with foreign imperialism, are also not officially tolerated, although some are known to be in the country technically working as teachers. Several American missionaries were deported from China this year.