During this Advent, churches across Britain will once again open their doors to both the regular faithful, along with not-so-faithful but much desired and warmly welcomed seasonal visitors. The pews in many churches will swell with those looking for their Christmas fix of candlelight and choral songs. We take for granted that these places of worship will be open for us to meet together weekly, or perhaps less regularly, for our corporate acts of worship.

In Algeria, those who long to gather to celebrate their Saviour’s birth don’t enjoy that certainty. Of the 47 churches of l’Église Protestante d’Algérie (the EPA), 43 have been issued orders to close by the repressive authoritarian government.

Christmas is a time when the persecution and suffering of Christians often intensifies

The law they use to justify these closure orders seems reasonable enough – churches should have permits to operate as places of worship. The problem is that, in spite of all the efforts made by the EPA’s leaders to comply with the law and submit applications for these permits, not one has been issued since the law was placed on the statute books in 2006. One Christian leader reports that an official let slip during an interrogation that the Algerian authorities planned to shutter every church in the country. Church closure orders are just one of a number of common methods by which the Algerian authorities systematically violate the religious freedom of their citizens.

One senior church leader has been convicted of defying the closure order, quietly and peacefully exercising his faith and his responsibility to those under his spiritual care. Pastor Youssef Ourahmane oversees a number of congregations in the city of Tizi Ouzou in the Kabilye region of Algeria and holds the position of the vice president of the EPA. He is also a dual national, with British citizenship. One hopes that the Foreign Office is fighting for him in their diplomatic conversations.

Like the vast majority of the Protestant community in Algeria, Pastor Youssef has a Muslim background. He traces his faith back to the late 1970s, having been impressed by the distinctive, disciplined lifestyles of some young Swedish Christians he knew. He was inspired to read the Bible. Neither those Swedes, nor the words he read in the Christian scriptures, corroborated what he had been taught in Algeria. Pastor Youssef gave his life to Christ in 1980 and a few years later he relocated to Hertfordshire where he studied at All Nations College, a Christian Bible college with a focus on international mission. There he met his wife, Hee Tee, and they moved back to Algeria so he could fulfil his calling to serve his fellow Algerians.

Pastor Youssef has endured state harassment and repression in various forms over the years. He’s been interrogated by the Algerian authorities on 26 separate occasions so far. Now he is facing prison time for the alleged crime of hosting an unauthorised religious assembly. In a remarkable abuse of judicial procedure, he was tried and sentenced without his prior knowledge. His sentence of two years imprisonment was reduced on appeal to one year, and he’s been ordered to pay a fine equivalent to around £587.

While Christmas is a time when Christians celebrate the birth of the Lord Jesus, it is also a time when the persecution and suffering of Christians often intensifies. Christians throughout most of the world are not perplexed by this. The joy of a newborn in a manger cannot be detached from Herod’s attempt to murder the infant Jesus by massacring all the baby boys, commemorated on 28th December as the Day of the Holy Innocents. The glorious mystery of Emmanuel is intrinsically interwoven with the humiliation of the crucified Christ, and Jesus’s assertion that his followers would likewise inevitably endure hatred, and pursuit. Such theology is sobering but also a source of comfort as it helps make spiritual sense of the perpetual pressures on Christ’s followers. However, it doesn’t sanitise the bleak, brutal realities lived by those under attack for their religious identity.

Pastor Youssef Ourahmane requested, ‘Pray for the believers in Algeria. Many of them are afraid. Pray that in the midst of all the persecution, God would encourage them, help them to stand firm in their faith, and empower them to be witnesses to His grace.’ This Christmas, Pastor Youssef will celebrate knowing that the next might be spent not with his wife and children, but behind bars. Multitudes of Christians will be facing even more severe persecution today.

Whether one is Christian or not, whether we will make use of our freedom to go to church and sing to God on Christmas Day or stay at home lost under a pile of wrapping paper, we can be thankful and vigilant for the freedoms we take for granted. This is a time for joy and gladness, but spare a thought and whisper a prayer for Pastor Youssef Ourahmane, for the church under pressure in Algeria, and for the many around the world who will spend Christmas Day pursued, in prison or in pain because of the faith they profess in the baby born in Bethlehem.