The Bill on religious public holidays in BH, which is currently in parliamentary procedure, spells out that employees have the right to a five day vacation in order to mark their religious holidays.
This applies to all faiths in BH. However, the Inter-religious Council is concerned with the number of new formed faiths that are “springing up like mushrooms after a rainstorm”.
Namely, there are 36 relatively new communities recorded in the Ministry of Justices Register of Churches and Religious Organizations.
All religious communities are obliged to register themselves and to inform the competent authorities of any subsequent amendments. One of the core requirements for registration is that the number of followers exceeds 300 BH citizens.
Pastors, priests, bishops and vicars heading the new communities carry out their activities away from the eyes of the public, usually in private rented houses.
The list of new communities contains Jehovah’s Witnesses, The Krstjan Community, The Society for Krishna Consciousness, Victory Celebration Center, New Apostolic Church, Christian Adventist Church and so on.
