Allen Yuan Explained

Allen Yuan
Birth Date:1914
Birth Place:Bengbu, Anhui Province
Death Date:16 August 2005
Death Place:Beijing
Education:Far East Bible College
Partner:Huizhen Lily Liang

Allen Yuan Xiangchen (; 1914  - August 16, 2005) was a Chinese Protestant Christian pastor. He was acclaimed by Open Doors as "a towering figure in China's house church movement" and known for his resistance against participation in the state-sanctioned Three-Self Patriotic Movement, which resulted in imprisonment for more than twenty-one years.[1]

Ministry

Yuan's ministry began in 1946, one year after the Japanese surrender. He was assisted by a Norwegian missionary. Yuan opened a prayer room in Beijing so that he could preach.[2]

When the government set up the Three Self Patriotic Movement to organize churches under party control in 1950, a year after the communist revolution, Yuan and many other pastors refused to join. Along with Wang Ming-dao and Watchman Nee, in 1958 Yuan was arrested and sentenced to life in prison for "counter-revolutionary crimes."[3]

Voice of the Martyrs quoted him speaking about his imprisonment at Heilongjiang, Northeast of China:[4] Yuan was released in 1979 and started his own house church at Miaoying Temple (also known as White Stupa Temple). The house church became one of the largest house churches during his era, with two to three hundred attendees.

Personal life

He married Huizhen Lily Liang in 1938, and they had six children in total. He died on August 16, 2005, in Beijing, and some 2,500 mourners attended his funeral on Eight Treasure Mountain in Beijing.

See also

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Rev. Allen Yuan, China's House Church Leader, Passed Away. Song. Christina. 20 August 2005. Gospel Herald.
  2. Web site: Pastor Allen Yuan of the unofficial Protestant Church laid to rest. AsiaNews.it. 25 August 2005. www.asianews.it. 27 March 2017.
  3. Allen Yuan. Doyle. G. Wright. yuan-allen. 15 December 2018.
  4. Web site: Allen Yuan Exchanges His Cross for a Crown. 17 August 2005. The Voice of the Martyrs Canada. https://web.archive.org/web/20080607073300/http://www.persecution.net/news/china84a.html. 7 June 2008. dead. 8 June 2017.