The Cuban Communist Party will review the order to confiscate Maranatha First Baptist Church's property.
The Cuban Communist Party has notified Maranatha First Baptist Church in Holguin that it will review the order issued by local government officials to confiscate the church's property and issue its decision in October.
Maranatha
First Baptist Church was first informed by local government officials
in May that the property in central Holguin City, which has belonged to
the church since 1947, was being confiscated by the government under new
powers granted to the authorities by legislation that went into effect
in January 2015. After an outpouring of public international support for the church, government officials informed the church in July that they would review the decision.
Reverend Amado Ramirez told Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW): “… the Office of Religious Affairs of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party, through the person of Caridad
Diego [head of the office], has promised us a final answer regarding
the confiscation in the month of October this year. We ask all of you to
continue to support us just as you have been in this just cause. We
hope in the Lord that after this whole process of dialogue with the
authorities in the municipality and province of Holguin, the
documentation we have submitted and the contacts our President [of the
Eastern Baptist Convention] has made with the maximum authorities, that
we will have a positive answer and that there will be no confiscation
and at the same time we will receive official permission to build the
new church building that we so desire.”
A
number of registered and unregistered religious groups have told CSW
that other churches have also been threatened with the confiscation of
their property under Legal Decree 322, which grants sweeping powers to
government officials to expropriate property under the guise of new
zoning restrictions and to change the status of the churches to rent
paying tenants.
The
Maranatha First Baptist Church, however is the only registered church
to go public with their situation and is of particular importance given
its large size and historic ownership of the property.
Reverend Yiorvis
Bravo, who leads an unregistered church in the city of Camaguey,
continues to fight the expropriation of the building which acts as the
church, the religious network headquarters and his family home.
CSW testified last week at a hearing in the United States Congress on Challenges to Religious Freedom in the Americas and highlighted ongoing religious freedom violations in Cuba, including the government expropriations of church property.