His funeral will be held on Oct. 31 in Jinzhou, Church sources told UCA News.
“Bishop Jia was a faithful servant of God, unafraid of authority for the sake of faith, and persevered until his end,” said a Chinese priest who knew him closely.
Born in Wuqiu Village, Jinzhou, Bishop Jia was first imprisoned in 1963 and spent around 15 years behind bars for refusing to renounce his allegiance to the Pope.
He was ordained a priest in 1980 and clandestinely consecrated as bishop of Zhengding a year later by Bishop Joseph Fan Xueyan of Baoding.
Throughout his ministry, Bishop Jia resisted pressure to join the state-managed Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA), established by the government to oversee Catholics independent of the Vatican.
His defiance led to repeated arrests and surveillance, including more than ten detentions, four of them between 2004 and 2020.
According to Church accounts, he was tortured in prison — authorities allegedly flooded his cell with water, causing painful bone spurs that affected him for life.
The recent series of arrests began in 2004 when he went missing after his arrest in Hebei Province, prompting international concern. He was released a week later after the Connecticut-based Cardinal Kung Foundation publicized his disappearance.
He was detained again in 2008, 2009, and most recently in August 2020, days before the Feast of the Assumption.
He also founded an orphanage in Hebei for abandoned children, which authorities reportedly demolished in 2020 for lack of government approval.
Zhengding Diocese is located in northern China’s Hebei region. The region is home to an estimated 1.5 million Catholics — one of the country’s largest concentrations of believers.
The diocese remains part of the “underground Church,” which continues to operate without official recognition despite the 2018 provisional agreement between China and the Vatican on bishop appointments.