The Nicaraguan government has dissolved the Episcopal Diocese of Nicaragua, and will confiscate its assets.
On 29 August 2024 the Ministry of the Interior (MINT) published the names of 92 churches and religious groups, and 77 civil society organizations cancelling their legal charters. The latest move by the government, led by President Daniel Ortega and his wife and vice-president Rosario Murillo, follows the cancellation of the legal status of 1,651 civil society organisations last month, and brings the total number of organizations that have arbitrarily lost their legal status since 2018 to 5,552.
In addition to the Episcopal church, the Nicaraguan Evangelical Alliance, the Moravian Church, the Chrisitan Reformed Church, the First Baptist and Presbyterian Church of Manauga and the Latino-Islamic Cultural Association were dissolved.
The Episcopal Diocese of Nicaragua has its roots in mission work begun on the Atlantic coast in 1742 when the area was a British protectorate. In the early Nineteenth Century planters imported slaves from Jamaica, who intermarried with the Moskitu Indians, creating a mixed race population distinct from the Spanish creole population found in the center and west coast of the country. The Mosquito Coast remains predominantly Anglican and Moravian, while the Spanish-speaking portion is predominantly Roman Catholic. The oldest extant Anglican church is in Bluefields, built in 1896, and the diocese operates a number of schools and social service institutions in the region.
Responsibility for the area was passed by the Church of England to the Episcopal Church of the USA in the Twentieth Century, and in 1998 Nicaragua joined the dioceses of Costa Rica, Panama, El Salvador and Guatemala to form the Iglesia Anglicana de la Región Central de America (IARCA)
The Ministry of the Interior (MINT) published a list of the cancelled organisations in the Official Daily Gazette. The latest move by the government, led by President Daniel Ortega and his wife and vice-president Rosario Murillo, follows the cancellation of the legal status of 1,651 civil society organisations earlier this month, and brings the total number of organisations that have arbitrarily lost their legal status since 2018 to 5,552.
The government has also announced that all property associated with the cancelled organisations, including buildings, land and furniture, will be forfeited to the government.
Christian Solidarity Worldwide’s Head of Advocacy Anna Lee Stangl denounced the government move. “The arbitrary cancellation of historic and diverse religious associations is, in many cases, leaving their members with nowhere to gather for religious purposes, but they are not the only people who will be affected. We are also highly concerned about the impact on the thousands of children and adults who interacted with the schools, and other institutions, like hospitals, run by these organisations. Many of the affected associations form a key part of the social fabric and culture of their locales. We continue to stand in solidarity with those who have dedicated their lives to the improvement of their communities only to see it all arbitrarily taken away by a totalitarian government interested only in its own survival.”
