Source: Barnabas Fund, February 4, 2019<\/p>\n
Work began on January 26 to build a new church at New Alamein<\/a>, one of 15 of Egypt\u2019s new \u201cfourth generation\u201d cities on the country\u2019s north coast. Church leaders thanked President al-Sisi for allocating the land, which seems in line with his promise that new towns should include churches as well as mosques.<\/p>\n New Alamein, about 110 km [or 68 miles] west of Alexandria, is designed to accommodate three million people and be a gateway between North Africa and southern Europe.<\/p>\n The president attended the opening of the cathedral in Egypt\u2019s planned new administrative capital. At the Christmas service on January 6 (when Orthodox Christians celebrate Christmas Eve) he expressed his support for Christians, [saying,] \u201cYou are our family, you are from us, we are one and no one will divide us.\u201d<\/p>\n Al-Sisi\u2019s government has also continued the process of legalizing church buildings<\/a> with 508 applications approved in 2018. However, progress is slow and more than 3,000 churches that have applied for approval since 2017 are still waiting to be registered.<\/p>\n \u00bb Read full story<\/a> and see a more general article about the fourth-generation cities<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00bb See also Is Sisi Good for Egypt\u2019s Christians?<\/a> (Wall Street Journal).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Source: Barnabas Fund, February 4, 2019 Work began on January 26 to build a new church at New Alamein, one of 15 of Egypt\u2019s new \u201cfourth generation\u201d cities on the country\u2019s north coast. Church leaders thanked President al-Sisi for allocating the land, which seems in line with his promise that new towns should include churches … Continue reading EGYPT: Work Begins on New Coptic Church, as Promised<\/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-8338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-briefs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8338","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=8338"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8339,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8338\/revisions\/8339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}