Suzhou Flagship Church Forbids Outsiders to Attend Services

Suzhou Dushu Lake Church in Jiangsu Province
Suzhou Dushu Lake Church in Jiangsu Province
By Anthony LeeOctober 19th, 2022

A flagship church in Jiangsu’s west Suzhou City has recently forbidden non-locals or people without “green” health codes to attend services.

In accordance with COVID-19 containment measures, Dushu Lake Church, China’s first bilingual church, launched the notice on October 14 which preceded the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party conducted last Sunday. It stated, “Every participant must scan the venue code and show negative nucleic acid reports within 48 hours. Believers who travel to and return to Suzhou within seven days, have traveled to any medium – or high-risk district, or have ‘abnormal’ health codes are forbidden to attend in-person services. They can instead listen to daily devotional podcasts or watch Sunday service videos on the church’s official website or through the WeChat account.”

Planning to attend the church’s second morning service held last Sunday, two anonymous Christians who arrived in Suzhou from Shanghai last Saturday were told not to enter the church. One commented with rage that he could not understand why the church rejected God’s people to worship under such “unreasonable pandemic protections”. He added that they had “green” health codes, but two receptionists replied that they just received such notification that morning. They had to walk around Dushu Lake next to where the church is located and listened to the singing coming from inside the building.

A participant said that every member must sit one meter apart on the pews inside the church. He added that the total Sunday attendance reached around 400 on average, one-third of the previous attendance before the pandemic. 

Suzhou Headquarters for Joint Prevention and Control for COVID-19 said on Monday that last Sunday reported two new asymptomatic infections. 

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