In a Mexican town torn by decades of religious strife, Seventh-day Adventists held a Saturday worship service on August 19 for the first time in more than two months. The service took place outdoors, next to the ruins of one of 14 homes destroyed in March this year when the village’s religious majority expelled the group, along with more than 60 other Protestant families.
The Adventists, from the village of Plan de Ayala in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, are among an estimated 30,000 Protestants in the region who have been driven from their homes over the years because of religious differences and for refusing to participate in community religious festivals.
“I don’t have a house, but I trust in God,” said Adventist Church member Juan Vasquez Alvarez, according to Associated Press reports.
Tensions between Protestants and Roman Catholics in Plan de Ayala have eased as a result of a recent agreement brokered by state officials allowing Protestants to perform community service in exchange for exemptions from local religious festivals. This agreement has been written into the town’s land rights law and is the first of its kind at this level, says Hortensio Vasquez, an Adventist Church leader in the region.
“Everything was calm and orderly as the Adventists returned to the village,” says Vasquez, who adds that the municipality and state has promised to rebuild the houses destroyed in the conflict earlier this year.
The agreement that paved the way for the Protestants to return to Plan de Ayala includes a provision for all town meetings to be held on a day other than Saturday-the Adventist’s day of worship. The agreement also exempts religious duties-such as participation in Roman Catholic festivals-from mandatory community service.
“We now have religious freedom,” says Vasquez. He reports that the agreement was the result of a meeting attended by religious leaders and state and local officials, where all participants “accepted the fact that everyone in the town can worship according to whatever religion they choose.”
Chiapas has a 30-year history of violence between Roman Catholics and Protestants which has left hundreds dead and thousands displaced from their villages. On August 20, Chiapas residents elected Pablo Salazar as their new governor-the first non-Roman Catholic governor in the state’s history-and he has promised renewed efforts to promote peace between religious groups in the area.