A number of Sunni clerics in Bahrain have expressed their opposition against a new plan by the Manama government for building a church in the country.
Seventy-one clerics said in a statement that Bahraini rulers should call off the decision.
Last week, the Bahraini Information Affairs Authority announced that construction has begun on the largest Roman Catholic Church in the region.
The church is being built in Awali neighborhood in central Manama on a 9,000-square-meter plot of land.
Bishop Camillo Ballin is to transfer the seat of the Roman Catholic Church's Vicariate of Northern Arabia from Kuwait to Bahrain after the construction of the church.