Egypt’s House of Representatives passed on Tuesday a long-awaited law governing the building and renovation of churches in the country, Reuters reported. According to state-owned Ahram Online, the 13-article law passed following four hours of “stormy debate” that saw some members of parliament voicing concerns about certain elements of the bill, including the stipulation in Article 2 that the size of a new church must correspond to the number of Christians in its respective neighborhood. Member of Parliament Emad Gad said that this provision is “restrictive and will still make it hard for Christians to build churches easily.” However, privately-owned financial newspaper Al-Mal alleged that the dissenting MPs were silenced by their coalition leaders and ultimately voted in favor of the bill. Last week, the cabinet of ministers released a statement saying that it had approved the bill after reaching “full consensus” with the country’s three major churches, after Egypt’s Orthodox Church released a statement objecting to the “complexities and obstacles” in the governmental amendments to the bill. “The church was surprised with unacceptable amendments and impractical additions; and it declares that they will impose a danger on Egyptian national unity,” the statement…
