WASHINGTON– A pastor of a major underground church who was detained in China in October has been freed, less than two months after US President Donald Trump raised his case during a meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing, according to human rights advocates.

Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri, of the underground Zion Church, arrived in Los Angeles on Saturday and “finally reunited with his family,” Frances Hui, of the Committee for Freedom Foundation in Hong Kong, wrote in X.

The Interparliamentary Alliance on China, a group of Western lawmakers, also reported his release and shared a photo of the pastor with his daughter, Grace Jin Drexel, both smiling.

Jin’s case drew attention after Trump, concluding his state visit to Beijing in May, said he had raised the issue of the pastor’s release with Xi and the Chinese leader said he would seriously consider it.

A statement from the family said the release happened very suddenly. He thanked Trump and said they know the release could not have happened without Xi’s direct intervention.

“We hope this signals a positive turn for people of faith in China and relations between our two nations,” the statement said.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Jin was detained along with 17 other religious leaders in October in one of China’s biggest crackdowns on a single church in decades, raising concerns about Beijing’s escalation in curbing religious freedom.

The Zion Church is among the largest churches not registered with Chinese authorities, defying the officially atheist Communist Party’s restrictions that require believers to worship only in registered congregations.

“My father founded Zion to worship freely in a church that put God as the sole head of our church, like many faithful Christians everywhere,” his daughter Grace Jin Drexel, who lives in the United States, told a congressional committee in November.

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Ken Moritsugu in Beijing contributed to this report.