Ethiopia’s northern Tigray State is considering adopting a new law that would restrict Christian activities to within official church compounds, it was reported in early May.
This would render illegal the activities of smaller churches that do not own their own buildings and gather in houses. The law, if passed, would most affect Christians from outside the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, because any church that wanted to have its own land would need to prove that it had at least 6,000 members, a greater number than the total population of non-Orthodox Christians in the state. The law would also ban Christians from evangelising outside of church compounds.
Amhara State
A similar law was recently ratified in neighbouring Amhara State which, together with Tigray, is home to most members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and local church leaders fear other states will copy the move.
