NANJING, China — One of China’s most prominent modern-day Christian leaders has died at the age of 83. Wenzao Han died Feb. 3 in Nanjing. He served from 1996 to 2002 as president of the China Christian Council (CCC) and in other capacities with the organization, which is the officially state-sanctioned Protestant denomination in China. China’s communist government placed severe restrictions on religious freedom during the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976. However, it allowed some Christian churches to reopen beginning in 1979. The CCC was established the next year, combining several different Protestant traditions. According to the group’s Web site, it is a “post-denominational movement” where “In the spirit of mutual respect, Christians with different faith and liturgical backgrounds worship God together.”
However, human-rights groups continue to criticize the Chinese government for periodic attempts to repress unofficial Protestant “house churches” not affiliated with the CCC, as well as Chinese Catholic bishops and churches that continue to be loyal to the pope’s authority. Han was head of the CCC when, in 1997, it complained about a Southern Baptist Convention agency’s practice of sending clandestine missionaries to work in China as humanitarian workers, circumventing the involvement of the CCC or the government.
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