China prints 125 millionth Bible ‎

Atheist China has just published its 125 millionth copy of the Bible at the world's biggest Bible factory in the country, Britain's Financial Times reported November 7.  The factory in the southern city of Nanjing is run by the Amity Foundation, a Chinese government-sanctioned Protestant charity, in a joint venture with United Bible Societies. Since the factory first opened in 1987 it has produced 65.7 million copies in 10 Chinese languages for domestic Christians, as well as 59.3 million Bibles published in 90 other languages that have been exported to 70 different countries. 

When the Communist party gained control of China following the 1949 revolution, there were 3.3 million Chinese Catholics.  Communist China, which is officially an atheist state, tried to wipe out religion.  In 1951 the government ‎expelled foreign missionaries, severed diplomatic relations with the Vatican and by 1957 set up its own church - the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association - in defiance of the Rome-based Catholic Church headed by the Pope.  China persecuted the Church for years until restoring a degree of religious freedom and ‎freeing imprisoned priests in the late 1970s.‎

According to official figures, fewer than 30 million people in China are Christian but more credible independent estimates put the number of Catholics and Protestants in the country at about 100 million, more than the 86.7 million members of the Chinese Communist party.