.- Thousands of evangelical Christians are organizing small family vigils every weekend in March, in a national call to cry out to God for the situation in Cuba.
Pastor Alejandro Hernández, from Havana, explains that the call has a spiritual purpose. “Pray before God and abandon our bad ways, that is, everything we should do and not do, any position of injustice,” he told Diario de Cuba.
Outcry for COVID-19
The prayer vigil is held from Friday to Saturday, from 10 am to 2 am, mainly in family groups due to the increase in cases of COVID-19 in Cuba.
For Hernández, the call also represents a declaration of principles by the Cuban evangelical community. “We see with pain how the nation is immersed in the sin and pride of its rulers,” she said.
“That is why we include the current crisis that the nation is going through in all the pillars: political, social, cultural and economic,” said Hernández, who believes in the power of the Church to “positively influence the destiny of Cuba.”
The apostle Joel Demetrio says that the prayer vigil has as its objective “the prevailing situation on the island: misery, hunger, repression and against the spirit of communism, which has oppressed this country for more than 62 years.”
Demetrio, who is president of the Missionary Church in Cuba, located in Las Tunas, explained that various denominations are involved in the vigil, being Independents, Adventists, Methodists, and the Assembly of God.
repressed evangelicals
According to the Patmos Institute, 5% to 10% of the Cuban population belongs to the Protestant world. Since 1959, evangelical churches have been repressed, through the expulsion of missionaries, the arrest of pastors, the confiscation of buildings and the closure of the media. The same thing happened with the Catholic Church.
According to Hernández, it is difficult to specify how many churches are involved in the initiative, but he guarantees that there are “hundreds of denominations led by different apostolic movements.”
The Apostolic Movement is a network of churches spread throughout Cuba, which the regime refuses to legalize due to its attitude and direct denunciation of communism, which has led to the arrest of pastors, threats to the congregation and even the demolition of churches in Camagüey and the east of Cuba, mainly.
illegal churches
“It includes all denominations that have been denied the right to legally register by the regime in violation of their own constitution,” Hernández said.
“I also know of legally registered denominations that joined and another that, being a member of the erroneously called Council of Churches of Cuba [organismo oficial de gobierno]joined the movement without making it public, for evident fear of reprisals.
Regarding the number of participating citizens, the pastor said that “initially there were 100,000, but that number has already quadrupled at least”, inside and outside the island.
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