Egypt’s parliament to discuss bill on establishing endowment bodies for churches

CAIRO – 26 December 2019: Egypt's government has referred on Thursday, a draft law on the establishment of endowment bodies for the Catholic and Evangelical churches to the parliament.

This move came shortly after the Cabinet approved the draft law earlier this month.

According to the law, each of the Catholic, Evangelical churches have a legal personality and will be located in Cairo.

Egypt’s President, as stated in the law will determine the two churches specializations.

According to the second article of the bill “each of the two bodies is managed by a board of directors.” This board to include Patriarch of the Catholic Church or head of the Evangelical Sect along with another twelve members of the clergy and religious men from each communities.

Last September, Egypt’s Cabinet announced that nearly 1171 churches and church-affiliated service buildings have been legalized nationwide.

The Cabinet’s decision to legalize churches comes according to 2016's article number 80 of the law regulating building churches.

In February 2018, during the term of former Prime Minister Sherif Ismail, it was announced that in accordance with the country’s constitution that adopts “the right to practice religious rites within different worship houses,” approval was given to study the cases of 53 churches along with several affiliated buildings to be officially licensed during the Cabinet’s following meeting.

Several conditions were laid in the statement for the churches to be finally recognized by the government as legal religious buildings. These conditions include meeting the requirements for civil protection within a period of four months and fulfilling all the state's rights regarding the rationing of the land on which such buildings are built. The approval may be withdrawn if the buildings do not finish civil protection facilities in four months.

On January 9, Egypt’s Ministry of Housing issued a decision to allocate lands to establish 37 churches in various new cities, Walid Abbas, assistant housing minister revealed. In an interview with Egypt Today, Abbas said that the government’s New Urban Communities Authority ordered allocating lands for 30 churches in different new cities from 2014 to 2017.

Abbas added that the authority also approved establishing seven other churches in new cities in 2018, besides the Church of Nativity, the Middle East’s biggest church that has been inaugurated in Egypt’s New Administrative Capital.