Source: World Watch Monitor, August 11, 2017<\/p>\n
A Pentecostal church in Ethiopia has been ordered to stop meeting in a residential area in the wake of a mob attack on the church after which a church member was arrested for \u201cillegal activities\u201d that \u201cincited religious clashes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Full Gospel Church in Tikil Dingaye, 20km from the historic city of Gondar in Amhara State, previously applied for land on which to build a church, but its application was refused, leading the church to purchase a house in which to meet.<\/p>\n
Although Ethiopia guarantees religious freedom on paper, Pentecostal churches in rural areas often face restrictions in a society dominated by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church (EOC).<\/p>\n
The attack on the church took place early in the morning of Sunday, June 11, when a mob destroyed the church\u2019s meeting hall, offices, and the accommodation of a church worker. They also stole money from church members and assaulted some of them, including one man whose front teeth had to be removed due to the injuries he sustained.<\/p>\n
The attackers are thought to have belonged to a student movement called Mahibere Kidusan, seen by its critics as \u201cfanatical\u201d in the way it operates to protect the traditions and dominance of the EOC in society.<\/p>\n
\u00bb Read full story<\/a> and others from World Watch Monitor<\/a>, which reports stories from around the world of Christians under pressure for their faith.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Source: World Watch Monitor, August 11, 2017 A Pentecostal church in Ethiopia has been ordered to stop meeting in a residential area in the wake of a mob attack on the church after which a church member was arrested for \u201cillegal activities\u201d that \u201cincited religious clashes.\u201d The Full Gospel Church in Tikil Dingaye, 20km from … Continue reading ETHIOPIA: Church Attacked, Told to Close<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-briefs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7408"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7409,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7408\/revisions\/7409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}