On a recent Sunday, Early Rain Covenant Church, one of China’s most prominent unregistered Protestant congregations, was violently interrupted mid-worship when armed law enforcement officers stormed the hotel ballroom venue where the congregation had gathered in the southwestern city of Jiangyou. In a formal statement released via the messaging platform Telegram the following day, church representatives confirmed that more than 30 congregants and leaders were forcibly taken from the service to a local detention center for interrogation, with two senior pastors, Yan Hong and Wu Wuqing, remaining in custody as of the latest updates. Members of the congregation estimate that at least 50 officers, including personnel from the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) unit, were on site during the 11 a.m. local time raid. Visual evidence shared by the church, including photographs and video clips, shows uniformed officers surrounding seated worshippers, while plainclothes officers can be seen on stage repeatedly demanding the congregation stop singing hymns. According to the church’s account, even after the raid, worshippers who remained in the ballroom — including elderly attendees and children — were locked in the space for hours while officers conducted mandatory identity checks. While in detention, the congregants detained for interrogation continued to fellowship, sing hymns and pray together, the statement added. Officers attempted to pressure congregants locked in the ballroom to sign an undisclosed affidavit in exchange for their release; all attendees refused to sign the document, but were ultimately released by 6 p.m. local time. All detainees except pastors Yan and Wu were released between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. Sunday, the church confirmed. No public explanation for the detentions has been issued by Chinese authorities, who have not responded to requests for comment on the incident. This is not the first time either Yan or Wu have been detained by authorities: the pair were most recently summoned by police in January on unsubstantiated charges of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” Founded in 2008 and originally based in the southwestern provincial capital of Chengdu, Early Rain Covenant Church has been a high-profile target of Chinese government regulation for years due to the country’s strict state control over religious practice. The church’s founding pastor, Wang Yi, was arrested during a large-scale 2018 raid and is currently serving a nine-year prison sentence on widely criticized charges of “inciting subversion of state power” and “illegal business operations.” China’s ruling Communist Party officially permits religious practice only through state-sanctioned denominations led by government-appointed clergy. According to official 2018 data, China is home to roughly 44 million Christians, though independent observers note this figure almost certainly excludes millions of worshippers who attend unregistered “house churches” like Early Rain Covenant, which operate outside state oversight. In recent years, Christian advocacy groups say government restrictions on unregistered religious activity have grown significantly harsher, with frequent raids and detentions of independent congregational leaders becoming the norm. Bob Fu, founder of ChinaAid, a non-profit organization that tracks religious freedom violations in China, called Sunday’s raid a clear demonstration of the ruling party’s ongoing framing of peaceful Christian worship as a threat to state authority. The incident comes less than a year after a similar large-scale crackdown on another prominent independent Chinese church: in October of last year, 30 leaders of the Beijing-based Zion Church were detained in coordinated raids across seven Chinese cities, and the church’s founder, Ezra Jin, remains in state custody to date.