Rome church faces shock new battle
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Iain Taylor
One of Rome’s leading Protestant churches, the Breccia di Roma, is set to take the Italian tax authorities to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) following an unexpected defeat in the Italian Supreme Court.
After Breccia di Roma bought its building in the heart of the capital city it applied to be classed a religious building, which would have exempted it from taxation. But the Tax Agency challenged that ruling, on the grounds that the building lacked the ‘intrinsic features’ of religious buildings, such as altars, images, and statues – clearly based on Roman Catholic conceptions of religious space. The church’s explanation that, as Protestants, the buildings contain no altars because it worships God in spirit and truth, fell on deaf ears. Although two lower courts found in the church’s favour, as they recognised the right of faith communities to design their own spaces according to their own principles, the Supreme Court disagreed.
Prayers for Taliban prisoner in Kabul
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Iain Taylor
American Christians are praying for the release of an aid worker incarcerated in a tiny basement cell in Afghanistan for the last two years.
Ryan Corbett, a humanitarian aid worker from a Baptist family in New York state, has been imprisoned in Kabul by the Taliban since August 2022.
Women’s group flourishes in Nigeria
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Iain Taylor
On a warm afternoon, the ululation, drumming and singing of a choir of two-dozen women can be heard across Gan Gora, a tiny village in Nigeria. ‘We are happy you arrived safely,’ they sing in Hausa, welcoming visitors to the community branch of the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) in Zangon Kataf, Kaduna. One song is from the book of Habakkuk: ‘Oh Lord, how long must I call for help, but you do not listen?’
The Guardian has reported how about 100 women dance regularly, including Rifkatu Dauda Kigbu, 53, hobbling on a fractured knee. This is a weekly meeting of zumunta mata, a fellowship of married women. Their visitors are zumunta mata members from an ECWA in Gonin Gora, a Kaduna suburb.