Mansour licenses building of two churches
Interim President Adly Mansour released a decision to license the building of two evangelical churches, the state owned news agency MENA reported Tuesday.
The two churches will be built in the Fifth Settlement neighborhood of eastern Cairo and New Assiut.
Church leaders in Egypt require government permission to begin building churches or doing upgrades to existing churches. Many worship underground or use community centers as churches to skirt the law, which they describe as too restrictive.
Ultra-conservative Facebook groups lambasted the decision, calling Mansour a “puppet.” Since former President Mohamed Morsi was deposed on July 3, the Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist allies have largely blamed the Christian minority for being behind much of the opposition to Morsi.
Evangelicals make up a small portion of Egypt's Christian population, which are considered to be around a tenth of the population.
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