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The Capitol Hill neighborhood is seen at dusk in this aerial photograph over Washington, DC, January 15, 2015. AFP PHOTO \/ SAUL LOEB (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>
\nBy Katabella Roberts
\nThe Epoch Times<\/p>\n
A Washington, D.C., church has been awarded\u00a0$220,000\u00a0after it filed a federal lawsuit<\/a> challenging the district\u2019s restrictions on gatherings at places of worship during the CCP virus<\/a> pandemic.<\/p>\n Leaders of Capitol Hill Baptist Church<\/a> (CHBC) have appealed to D.C. officials since Mayor Muriel Bowser\u2019s restrictions were issued on March 11, 2020, which banned all\u00a0indoor and outdoor church meetings of 100 or more, even if participants wear masks and social distance.<\/p>\n But in October last year, Senior Pastor Mark Dever and CHBC\u2019s elders won a\u00a0preliminary injunction (pdf<\/a>)\u00a0against Bowser\u2019s restrictions,\u00a0allowing the congregation to resume worship services outdoors with\u00a0proper precautions such as wearing masks and maintaining social distance.<\/p>\n In a settlement (pdf<\/a>) between the two parties signed on July 8, 2021,\u00a0Mayor Muriel Bowser\u00a0and her administration agreed to pay $220,000 to church lawyers at WilmerHale and the First Liberty Institute,\u00a0a Plano, Texas-based law firm that specializes in First Amendment<\/a> religious freedom litigation.<\/p>\n As per the settlement, the district \u201cagrees that it will not enforce any current or future COVID-19<\/a> restrictions to prohibit CHBC from gathering as one congregation\u201d in the district.<\/p>\n The district further agrees that, should it impose new restrictions on religious gatherings in the name of mitigating COVID-19 or variant thereof, \u00a0they will not be more restrictive than on \u201ccomparable secular activities, as defined by the Supreme Court<\/a>,\u201d the settlement states.<\/p>\n The district also agreed to pay the church\u2019s legal fees.<\/p>\n Senior Pastor Mark Dever\u00a0is\u00a0a nationally known evangelical leader and the founder of the 9Marks organization, which provides ministry and administrative resources for churches across the nation, and has been at CHBC since 1994.<\/p>\n The\u00a0850-member congregation has held worship services every Sunday since 1878, except for three weeks during the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic.<\/p>\n \u201cAll Capitol Hill Baptist Church ever asked is for equal treatment under the law so they could meet together safely as a church,\u201d said Hiram Sasser<\/a>, executive general counsel for First Liberty Institute.<\/p>\n \u201cThe church is relieved and grateful that this ordeal is behind them. Government officials need to know that illegal restrictions on First Amendment rights are intolerable and costly,\u201d he said, according to the Washington Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n Lockdowns, which\u00a0began in March 2020 in the United States, forced religious services,\u00a0including those of Roman Catholic, Orthodox Jewish, and Pentecostal congregations, to come to a halt\u00a0throughout\u00a0the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n However, the forced closures became a sticking point when some\u00a0jurisdictions imposed more severe restrictions on houses of worship than were placed on secular activities.<\/p>\n The Supreme Court struck down several prohibitions<\/a> on religious gatherings during the crisis, and multiple states eventually began easing the restrictions and allowing houses of worship to open for in-person services, albeit with virus-related modifications in place.<\/p>\n