M

ariana Ginting, 69, closed her Holy Bible as members of her congregation, which had just finished a Sunday service at the Pasar Minggu district office in South Jakarta, left the hall one by one.

For Mariana, it was another hard-earned service and she was glad it ended without incident.

With a support bandage on her left knee, Mariana said it was not easy for a woman of her age to reach the fourth story of a building to worship every Sunday.

However, she said she believed “it was God’s will” and said nothing would stand between her and the Sunday service.

“Performing our weekly worship without creating any problems is all we want; I cannot understand why it should be that hard,” Mariana told The Jakarta Post as she walked slowly down the stairs.

In Pasar Minggu, the struggle of 259 congregation members from the Pasar Minggu Batak Karo Church to secure a place of worship continues every Sunday.

For the last two weeks the congregation has held its Sunday service at the Pasar Minggu district office following a protest staged by an intolerant local group, which disputed the church’s lack of an appropriate building permit (IMB).

The protest led to the closure of the church as demanded by a South Jakarta mayoral letter on Sept. 30. The church applied for an IMB in 2004, but a year later the city administration issued an IMB for a home office, not a house of worship.

After a series of talks, the congregation agreed to move its Sunday service to a hall at the Pasar Minggu district office. However, despite a Jakarta gubernatorial instruction ordering the church to find a temporary site as it waited for an IMB to be issued, the district office tried to prevent the religious activities.

Arguing that elderly members of the congregation would have a hard time reaching the hall, located on the fourth story of the district office, and considering objections from local residents, the district head ordered the congregation to move its activities to another building nearby. The congregation, however, considered the decision to be a failure from the city administration to provide protection.

“They can not move us to another place without telling us first. It is not the right way to treat people who want to carry out religious activity,” said the church’s pastor, Penrad Siagian.

After waiting for half an hour outside the district office’s closed gate, dozens of the church’s congregation members were finally allowed to enter the building. However, the district office would not promise that they would be allowed to hold another Sunday service at the hall in the future.

Pasar Minggu district head Eko Kardiyanto said a group of “local figures” had voiced their objection to the district office’s decision to provide a space for the Sunday service.

It was unusual, Eko said, for a city administration office to do so, which is why he believed the congregation should have been moved to a nearby community center.

“Moreover, the community center only has one floor so the elderly group won’t need to take the stairs like they have to do in this building,” he told the Post.

Eko repeatedly highlighted the fact that no other district office had ever provided space for worship in a similar way.

“I have been living in this city for a very long time and I have never heard of a district office being used as a place of worship. This is the central office of the city administration in this district,” he said.