Christians in Algeria say they are hoping Pope Leo XIV's visit will be what "leads to change" as they have recently faced a massive spike in church closures and Christian arrests.
Pope Leo is visiting Algeria April 13–15 for the first part of his African papal trip. The pope's presence has been "widely viewed by the Christian community as a success," Kelsey Zorzi said in an April 14 interview with "EWTN News Nightly."
Zorzi, director of global advocacy at Alliance Defending Freedom, discussed religious freedom in Algeria and the government's move to stop the spread of Christianity.
"Algeria is 99% Muslim; less than 1% of the population is Christian," she said. "So for many years, Christians and Muslims have been living side by side. Muslims have been hearing the Gospel and steadily converting to Christianity."
"As of 2017, there were 50 thriving Protestant evangelical churches operating across the country, and these churches were growing, and the government took note of this," she said.
"To combat what it perceived as an increasing threat," the government "started enforcing an old 2006 ordinance that required the association of Protestant churches to be licensed," she said. "These associations tried numerous times to apply for a license, but the government has refused to this day to acknowledge these applications or to grant the licenses."
"So they have shut down, over the course of the last nine to 10 years, almost 50 churches across the country," she said.
The government has claimed the closures were due to problems including safety permits and zoning laws, but Zorzi said "these claims are a mere pretext, and the government's actual motivation is to stop the spread of Christianity in Algeria."
In the nation, there has been "a long history of pretextual and manipulative tactics that have been used to keep the churches closed," she said.
"We've seen the government allege that some of the churches have building code violations, and after these alleged violations are remedied, the government still refuses to reopen the churches," she said.
The government also has asked "the Evangelical Association to meet to discuss the license, and when the invitation for these meetings arrives, it's often for a date that has already passed," she said.
Pope Leo's visit to Algeria
The pope met with the president of Algeria on April 13, "and we are hearing he did raise the issue of the Protestant church closures as well as the criminal charges that are being brought against pastors," she said.
Pope Leo also said Mass where the archbishop of Algiers "pointed out that the Christian community in Algeria is comprised of several denominations" and he "specified that several Protestant church leaders were present at the Mass," she said.
"The pope visited the eastern portion of the country, which is where St. Augustine lived, and planted an olive tree as a symbol of peace," she said. "The Protestant community's general sense of the pope's visit has been highly positive."
"They're very encouraged and they're hoping that this might be the thing that leads to change," she said.
