Some 45,000 Angolans gathered at a sports stadium in Luanda June 28 to celebrate freedom of religion in their country, which is rebuilding in the aftermath of a 27-year civil war that ended in 2002.

The festival, the largest to date, followed a three-day religious liberty congress sponsored by the International Religious Liberty Association and attended by 600 religious liberty proponents, faith leaders and governmental representatives from the southwest African nation and around the world.

In his keynote address, IRLA secretary-general John Graz thanked the government of Angola for promoting and defending religious liberty and singled out those who fought for the freedoms the country currently enjoys. Such festivals, typically held in tandem with IRLA congresses, are an important way of recognizing a country’s efforts to ensure freedom of belief, Graz has said.

“The only alternative to religious freedom is intolerance or persecution. The 45,000 people who participated in the Luanda festival made a choice between freedom and persecution,” Graz said. “They chose freedom.”

The festivals, a three-year initiative of the Seventh-day Adventist world church’s department of Public Affairs and Religious Liberty, are meant not only to express gratitude for existing religious liberties and those who’ve supported them, but also to serve as incentives for public leaders positioned to influence policy to uphold freedom of belief.

The first large-scale religious liberty festival was held in Sao Paulo, Brazil in 2006 and drew some 12,000 attendees. Similar festivals are planned around the world this year and next, with the first World Festival of Religious Freedom scheduled for November 2009 in Lima, Peru.