Can preaching alone, with no convert in sight, cost a believer his right to stay? India’s Madras High Court says yes: a US citizen of Indian origin lost his OCI status for preaching in villages without permission. The same week, India’s Supreme Court took up a challenge to Chhattisgarh’s 2026 anti-conversion Act, Russia fined four people for “missionary activity” at a Muslim prayer site in Yekaterinburg, and a Kuwaiti da’wa committee reported 1,407 converts in three months, most of them reached online abroad. From Rome’s “Church of the Sheaves” to Orthodox missionaries trained against neopaganism, this briefing traces a shift: the offence is moving from conversion to unlicensed speech.
Proselytism and Religious Outreach Worldwide: Conflicts, Policies, and Trends – 17–23 October 2026
This week, the state’s sharpest tool against missionaries was the visa, not religion law. Nepal fined, deported and banned 24 South Koreans found at a Bible college for activities outside their tourist visas. In Khabarovsk, a Korean missionary got 5 years 8 months for “organising illegal migration”, and a Krishna festival in Russia drew 535,000 roubles in fines. In West Bengal, Christian families allege a forced ghar wapsi, with “purification” by water and worship at a Durga Puja pandal. In Tanzania, an Orthodox metropolitan publicly baptised 270 former Muslims, while converts were sentenced in Iran and tried in Egypt. In Rome, the “Church of the Sheaves” spoke of “honest memory” of mission’s colonial past.