SALT LAKE CITY — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has legal status in South Sudan for the first time in 11 years.
According to The Church News, that legal status was lost in 2013 when civil war sent the country into chaos. Approximately 2.2 million South Sudanese fled to neighboring countries such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo during the war. During that time, the government’s Bureau of Religious Affairs ceased operation which prevented The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from applying for the required annual registration.
Members of the church lived without a registered church for over a decade.
In 2023, multiple South Sudanese members and the Africa Central Area’s legal counsel worked to restore the Church’s legal status.
The Church reported that on an ordinary conference call, Ismail Lazaro Zangbayo made a passionate plea to leaders for the return of the Church in South Sudan.
“The people here have been traumatized by war, and the gospel is the only thing that will fully heal them,” he said.
At the end of that meeting, Zangbayo prayed that the Church would be restored in South Sudan.
Within just days, that prayer was answered and government officials expressed interest in renewing the Church’s legal status “in a much simpler way than had been expected.”
Finally, on Feb. 7, 2024, the Church’s legal status in South Sudan was renewed. Then on May 26, 2024, members of the Church gathered at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Juba for the reorganization of the Juba Branch.
The Church News reported, “Baptisms have not been performed in South Sudan since the civil war began. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints first received legal status in South Sudan in 2009. The return of the Church comes at an important time. More than half of the country’s 11 million people are under age 18.”
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