He was acclaimed by Open Doors as "a towering figure in China's house church movement" and known for his resistance against participation in the state-sanctioned Three-Self Patriotic Movement, which resulted in imprisonment for more than twenty-one years.
[2] When the government set up the Three Self Patriotic Movement to organize churches under party control in 1950, a year after the communist revolution, Yuan and many other pastors refused to join.
Along with Wang Ming-dao and Watchman Nee, in 1958 Yuan was arrested and sentenced to life in prison for "counter-revolutionary crimes.
"[3] Voice of the Martyrs quoted him speaking about his imprisonment at Heilongjiang, Northeast of China:[4]During those years in prison my wife suffered untold hardships in bringing up the children.
Wang Ming Dao and I thought we would die martyrs there.In the labor camp it was very cold, food was bad, and the work was hard, but in 22 years I never once got sick.