The Coptic Patriarchate has been granted permission to use a 30-hectare plot of land to construct buildings and offices for St. Mark's Cathedral in Cairo, and three other smaller plots of land have been approved for the construction of three new churches, two Coptic Orthodox churches and one Coptic Evangelical church, in three different parts of Cairo.
These measures, which were recently approved by the Egyptian Ministry of Construction, Services and Urban Planning, were announced by the Minister Mostafa Madbouly. In a press release issued by the Minister, Madbouly emphasizes that these measures are based on real pastoral needs that have been thoroughly documented by the different denominations and that they comply in every way with the legal requirements regarding the construction of religious buildings. At the end of October last year, representatives from the main churches and Christian denominations in Egypt submitted a draft bill to the government. It concerned the construction of new churches and was intended to lay down clear legal guidelines to avoid the arbitrary treatment of church construction cases in the future.
Henrik Ertner Rasmussen, Secretary General of the Danish European Mission, who has lived and worked in Egypt for seven years and is familiar with the previous rules that often dragged out church building cases for years, sometimes making it almost impossible to build new churches, says that this is a completely new tone that shows that President al-Sisi is actually serious when he says that the Egyptian people are one, regardless of their faith, which must also mean equality before the law. It also shows that the government is listening to the reasonable wishes of the churches.
Source: Agenzia Fides
