President relaxes church repair regulations

CAIRO, Egypt — A decree issued by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in late December has relaxed a 140-year-old set of laws requiring all Christian churches to obtain high-level government permits to repair and restore their houses of worship.

Mubarak ordered that permits to repair “all houses of worship” be obtained from the local administrative authority in their governate, despite verbal promises made in early December to a U.S. congressional delegation that he planned to issue a presidential decree that would cancel all previous requirements.

Significantly, all mosques are now harnessed with the identical requirement to obtain repair permits. Although this puts the churches on an even standing with mosques in terms of building repairs and restoration, some Christians worry that they will be blamed for new official red-tape now required to maintain the nation’s thousands of mosques.