AFRICA/EGYPT - The number of churches "legalized" by the Egyptian government rises to 1171

Tuesday, 24 September 2019 middle east   oriental churches   politics  

CoptsToday

Cairo (Agenzia Fides) - In Egypt the process of "legalization" of Christian places of worship built in the past without the necessary permits is proceeding at a rapid pace. In recent days, the governmental committee in charge of subjecting the churches to arranged controls, confirmed that they had verified the compliance of 62 other Coptic churches with the requisites required for their "legalization". The Prime Minister of Egypt, Mostafa Kamal Madbouly, chaired a meeting with government ministers on Monday 23 September in which the results of the work carried out by the committee for the verification and final "legalization" of the churches were ratified.
Today the churches and the buildings annexed to them, examined and regularized by the ad hoc Committee, are 1171. The previous meeting of the Committee took place on August 5th (see Fides 6/8/2019).
The verification and regularization process began with the approval of the new law on construction and site management of worship, ratified by the Egyptian Parliament almost three years ago, on 30 August 2016.
The churches subjected to scrutiny by the ad hoc governmental committee are above all those built before the new law on the construction of Christian buildings of worship came into force. The Committee is in charge of verifying whether thousands of Christian churches and places of prayer built in the past without the required authorizations meet the standards established by the new law. Verification is usually resolved in the regularization of places of worship.
In recent decades, many churches and chapels had been built spontaneously, without all the necessary authorizations. Even today, these buildings, built by local Christian communities without legal permits, continue from time to time to be used as an excuse by Islamist groups to foment sectarian violence against Christians.
The law on places of worship in August 2016 represented an objective step forward for the Egyptian Christian communities with respect to the so-called "10 rules" added in 1934 to Ottoman legislation by the Ministry of the Interior, which prohibited, among other things, the construction of new churches close to schools, canals, government buildings, railways and residential areas. In many cases, the strict application of those rules had prevented the construction of churches in cities and towns inhabited by Christians, especially in rural areas of Upper Egypt. (GV) (Agenzia Fides, 24/9/2019)


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