Egypt grants legal status to 191 churches after decades of restrictions

CAIRO (LifeSiteNews) — The Egyptian government has granted legal status to 191 churches and church-affiliated buildings as part of its ongoing legalization process for Christian places of worship.

On May 19, the Egyptian government issued an executive order legalizing 191 churches and affiliated service buildings belonging to various Christian denominations across the country. The decision followed a cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly and forms part of a long-running state program established to regularize the legal status of churches and religious facilities that had operated without official authorization for decades.

“With this latest batch of approvals, the total number of churches and service buildings granted legal status since the committee began its work has reached 3,804,” the Egyptian Cabinet said in its official statement regarding the approval for legalization on April 17.

The legalization was approved following a review by the Main Committee for the Legalization of Churches, a body created to assess applications from churches and related facilities seeking official recognition. According to government statements, the committee examined the legal and technical status of each building before recommending approval.

The latest decision represents another stage in Egypt’s broader effort to address the status of thousands of religious buildings that were constructed over previous decades without obtaining the permits required by law. Since the legalization process began, authorities have periodically announced new rounds of approvals following reviews conducted by the committee.

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Christian advocacy organization Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) welcomed the government’s action. CSW founder and President Mervyn Thomas said: “CSW welcomes the news that the Egyptian government has granted 191 churches and service buildings legal status, and we encourage the government to continue with this process to resolve the situation of the large number of places of worship built over past decades.”

Thomas added: “We also encourage the Egyptian government to reflect the rights provided in the Egyptian constitution and the personal commitment of President Sisi towards promoting freedom of religion or belief and equality of citizenship.”

The current legalization process is linked to Egypt’s Church Construction Law. The law was approved by the Egyptian Parliament on August 30, 2016, and introduced a new framework governing the construction and renovation of churches. Under the law, authority to approve church construction and restoration projects was transferred to provincial governors. Previously, such approvals had largely been controlled by security agencies.

According to information provided by CSW, the law applies specifically to Christian churches and does not impose the same requirements on Sunni Muslim places of worship. The legislation also does not provide a framework for religious groups outside the officially recognized Christian denominations, including Ahmadi, Baha’I, and Muslim Shia communities.

The background to the current initiative stretches back many years. For decades, numerous churches and church-related facilities were built or expanded without obtaining full legal authorization, creating uncertainty regarding their official status. In 2016, after Parliament passed the Church Construction Law, the government established a committee tasked with reviewing and legalizing eligible churches and affiliated buildings. Since then, the committee has conducted successive reviews and approvals. With the addition of the 191 churches and service buildings approved in May 2026, the total number of legalized structures has now reached 3,804, according to figures released by the Egyptian Cabinet.

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The difficulty Christians face in building or repairing churches in Egypt is deeply intertwined with the broader pattern of pressure and discrimination experienced by the Christian and particularly Coptic community.

For decades, restrictive laws, arbitrary local vetoes, and slow or selectively applied authorization procedures have made it extremely hard for Copts to obtain permits, leaving many communities without adequate places of worship and exposing them to accusations of illegality when they gather to pray. This structural vulnerability reinforces their marginalization: when churches operate without full legal recognition, they become easier targets for mob violence, and authorities often respond by closing them rather than protecting the worshippers.

In this way, bureaucratic obstacles to church construction did not merely reflect the precarious status of Copts in Egyptian society – they actively contributed to it, creating a cycle in which legal insecurity, social hostility, and episodes of persecution fed into one another.