(Jinan, Shandong — August 13, 2026) Nearly five months after authorities reportedly took away 73-year-old Pastor Wang Sanyuan on March 17, his family still has received no official word about his whereabouts or legal status. Wang leads Changchunli Church, a government-registered church in Jinan, the capital of Shandong province in eastern China.

According to a local pastor identified as Jin, who is familiar with the case, Wang’s wife and children have received no official notification explaining why he was taken or whether he has been charged. Wang has serious cardiovascular and cerebrovascular conditions and has been hospitalized several times, raising concerns among his family and church members.

“Since he was taken on March 17, nothing has been found,” says a widely circulated church statement. “The family has nowhere to turn with their complaints and is pushed to the point of desperation.”

The case is unusual because Changchunli Church is not an unregistered house church. It is an officially recognized Three-Self Patriotic Church, part of China’s state-sanctioned Protestant church system and registered with religious affairs authorities.

Sources confirmed by ChinaAid, cited anonymously for safety reasons, believe Wang’s disappearance may be connected to a long-running dispute over Changchunli Church’s property. More than a decade ago, leaders resisted state efforts to close or take control of the congregation.

Changchunli Church, located on Jing’er Road in Jinan’s Shizhong District, dates to the 1930s. After 1949, the property was occupied for years by the Jinan Municipal Bureau of Culture. The church later returned to the official church system and became embroiled in a dispute over its property amid plans for demolition and commercial redevelopment.

According to records from ChinaAid from the period, officials from Jinan’s Three-Self organizations and Religious Affairs Bureau entered Changchunli Church on June 8, 2009, announced that church gatherings were suspended and attempted to remove Wang from his positions as pastor and director of the church’s management committee. Hundreds of believers resisted, prompting police intervention. 

The conflict continued the following year. In September 2010, more than 200 people in police uniforms entered tents where Changchunli believers were staying at the site of the church after its building had been razed for the development that became Wanda Plaza. At least 27 believers were injured, according to the report, and more than 300 later went to city hall to protest. 

ChinaAid later included the persecution of Changchunli Church among its top 10 cases of persecution in China in 2010, citing the property dispute, attacks on believers and the church’s unsuccessful efforts to seek legal remedies. 

Jin said Wang’s resistance to the earlier property dispute may explain why authorities are targeting him now. “At the time, the authorities and developers wanted to take over the church’s property. He fought very strongly and successfully,” Jin recalled. “This happened more than ten years ago, and I believe the authorities are now settling old scores.” 

Wang is regarded by local believers as an influential and respected Christian leader in Jinan and throughout Shandong. Changchunli Church has approximately 500 to 600 people attending its gatherings regularly, according to Jin.

Local believers are organizing prayer efforts and calling on authorities to release Wang if he remains detained, while also seeking an explanation for his prolonged absence from public view and assurances about his health.