There are 23 to 40 million Christians in China, accounting for 1.7 to 2.9 per cent of the population in the Communist nation.
However, whether or not this number also includes believers who go to "home churches" - often clandestine gatherings of individuals in their homes - is yet to be verified, state-run China.Org reported.
The Chinese government does not encourage believers to attend home churches and there are no official statistics showing how large the population of home church-goers could be, China's governing body for Christianity Three-Self Patriotic Movement said.
The "Three-Self" approach is a strategy of "self- governance, self-support, and self-propagation", initiated in the early 1950s in a bid to remove foreign influence from Chinese Christian churches.
Catholic churches in China have no affiliation to the Vatican, meaning that the appointments of new cardinals and archbishops in China are made independently of the Holy See.
Likewise, Chinese cardinals were not seen in the March 2013 conclave that elected Pope Francis following the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI.
Statistics from the State Administration for Religious Affairs show that China has 139,000 public places for religious congregation, including 56,000 Christian churches.
