China has banned the Bible from being sold online as part of a major crackdown on Christianity.

The Orwellian measures were announced over the weekend, but have now taken effect — with the Christian holy book now no longer available on major Chinese retailer websites.

Websites that have stopped selling the Bible include Amazon China, Taobao and JD.com.

However, some retailers are still offering related materials — like illustrated storybooks, or academic analyses of the Bible.

It’s part of China’s bid to limit the country’s growing religious scene, according to the New York Times.

In 2014, sociology professor Fenggang Yang predicted that China would become the “largest Christian country in the world very soon,” overtaking the USA by 2025.

China already had rules that meant that Bibles couldn’t be sold at normal shops — only church bookstores were allowed to sell it.

But online sales provided a simple loophole for Chinese Christians to pick up the holy book.

Now new government religious regulations tightened the rules on Christianity, barring online sales of the Bible too.

Speaking to The Sun, a Christian Solidarity Worldwide spokesperson said: “The ban is deeply concerning and part of a wider pattern of violations of the right to freedom of religion or belief in China, which includes unregistered ‘house churches.’

“We are seeing unregistered Christian groups being forced to shut down and in some cases, church buildings have been completely demolished.

“At the same time, churches registered with the authorities are also being managed more tightly following the introduction of revised Regulations on Religious Affairs, which came into effect on February 1 this year.”

China President Xi Jinping is waging a campaign to promote traditional values in China, including boosting Buddhism, Taoism and folk religion.

That’s why it’s still possible to buy other holy books online in China.

You can get the Taoist Daodejing and Buddhist sutras online very easily — and Islam’s Quran too.

The Quran also has the Chinese equivalent of an ISBN, a numeric book identifier — which the Bible doesn’t have in China.

China has been cracking down on Christianity for years.

From 2014 to 2016, the country removed 1,500 crosses from churches in one province.

Meanwhile, China has been subsidizing Taoist music and folk pilgrimages.

A recent report suggested that there are 6 million Catholic worshipers and 38 million Protestant worshipers in China, although some believe these figures only represent about half of the true total.