ABSTRACT
In European towns and cities, religious changes are taking place in environments that were long characterized by a certain degree of cultural and religious homogeneity, and that homogeneity helped to form the urban landscape. The possibility of building a space in which to worship freely, individually, or collectively is closely linked to the exercise of religious freedom guaranteed of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The Constitution stipulates that building construction, including construction of buildings for worship, is the purview of regional legislation. Over the years, however, regional laws on worship buildings have provoked the intervention of the Constitutional Court on several occasions. In the United States, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) deals with religious buildings. The first part of the law protects land use for religious purposes, while the second part is devoted to protecting the religious freedom of persons who are detained or otherwise held in public institutions.
