Two new Protestant churches to be built in Beijing

Two new Protestant churches will be added to the existing eight in Beijing to meet the rising needs of more than 40,000 local believers. One of the new churches will be built in Chaoyang District of eastern Beijing, and the other in Caoqiao Park of Fengtai District in the south. The two churches will be larger than any exisiting ones in the city. Costing 40 million yuan (US$4.8 million), each will cover roughly 2,000 square metres and can accommodate 1,500 worshipers.

"There is an increasing number of believers in Beijing and existing churches cannot meet their demand," said Reverend Yu Xinli, president of the Beijing Christian Council, "The largest church can only hold 1,000 believers at a ritual and the others can hold 200 to 500 each. In the past 20 years, it is estimated that more than 1,500 people were baptized each year.

Apart from the rapid growth of believers, it is also very good for the preparation of the coming 29th Olympic Games 2008.

There were altogether 11116 athlets come from 199 countries participated in the Olympic Games 2000 in Sydney. It is estimated that it would not be less than this number in the coming Olympic Games 2008. Coaches, judges and reporters from all over the world with their own religions will all come to Beijing.

Jiang Zemin comrade said, "In order to understand the world, you must first understand their religions. We cannot underestimate the influence of religion."

The world population is 6 billion, among them, 4.8 billion are believers, it occupies 4/5 of the whole population. There are 2 billion christians (including Catholic, Protestant and Eastern Orthodox) scattered in 242 countries and 1.2 billion Muslims scattered in 204 countries.

Currently, there are 102 religious meeting places in Beijing, including 17 Catholic Churches, 8 Protestant Churches, 68 Mosques, 8 Buddhist temples and 1 Taoism temples. Usually the athelets need to offer prayers and services before the race. So Beijing is planning to build up provisional religious meeting places.

The 10th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference will be held in Beijing on Mar 3. National Administrative Commission of the Chinese Catholic Church vice president Yin mu lan suggested to establish a permanent religious place of meeting to provide religious activities, so that this Olympic Games in Beijing will be very historical. Many religion committees agreed for such proposal and put their signature to support this event.