Ziona
Head of Chana Pâwl, a Christian sect formed in June 1942 in India
Ziona (born Zionnghaka; 21 July 1945 – 13 June 2021) was the leader of Lalpa Kohhran Thar (meaning "The Lord's New Church"), informally referred to as Chana Pâwl or Chhuanthar Kohhran ("The Church of New Generation"), a polygamy-practising Christian sect in Mizoram, India. He was often referred to as a world record holder for being the head of the "world's largest existing family" or the "world's biggest family". In 2011, as officials of the Guinness World Records made verification, he refused the world record title as he shunned publicity. His family was nonetheless listed as the "Biggest Family" in the world in 2011 by the World Record Academy, and The Wall Street Journal in 2011, and then by the London World Records in 2019.
The religious sect he led was formed by his uncle Khuangtuaha in 1942 as a millennialist denomination, which survives in Serchhip district in Mizoram state of India, sharing borders with Bangladesh and Myanmar. After migration from Hmawngkawn village, the sect settled in Baktawng village Mizoram, India. In 1997, Ziona succeeded his father Chana, who in turn had succeeded Khuangtuaha in 1966. He had 39 wives, 94 children, 14 daughters-in-law, 33 grandchildren and one great grandchild; 181 family members in total and counting. His family and their four-story residence are one of the major tourist attractions in Mizoram. He was featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Ziona” is head of Chana Pâwl, a Christian sect formed in June 1942 in India. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Ziona, Head and Chana, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “head of Chana Pâwl, a Christian sect formed in June 1942 in India” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7257214. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1945, 2021, 2011 and 2019.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ziona” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.