As Greece implements new legislation to shut down illegal Islamic worship centers and deport foreign imams running them, Italy is confronting a record increase in unlicensed mosques within its borders.
On February 2, Greece’s Ministry of Immigration and Asylum appealed to Article 28 of Law 5224/2025 to revoke the residence permit of a Bangladeshi imam accused of operating an illegal mosque in the Agios Nikolaos area of the Municipality of Athens. The mosque was sealed and the 34-year-old imam, who has not been named, was sentenced to prison.
Let the challenge of Islamism in Greece and Italy be tackled honestly, not by resorting to legalistic tricks.
The new legislation does not target any particular faith but authorizes the police to seal places of worship erected or operated without a permit from the Minister of Education, Religious Affairs, and Sports. Individuals who own, erect, or operate such structures will be punished with a fine and a prison sentence of two to six months. Foreigners who violate the law face deportation.
“What happened in Agios Nikolaos will happen everywhere. All illegal places of worship will be shut down, with the parallel revocation of the legal documents of those who operate them,” Athanasios Plevris, Minister of Immigration and Asylum, told the parliamentary committee on Public Administration, marking the first application of the new provision.
“In cooperation with the relevant ministries, illegal mosques will be sealed, and those involved will be deported,” he emphasized, while announcing a nationwide “sweep” to identify and shut down the illegal mosques in Athens. Greece’s capital is reported to have 60 to 100 unauthorized mosques. The only licenced mosque in Athens was opened in 2020 in the Votanikos district.
Sources from Greece’s Bangladeshi community said that the man arrested was not a professional imam but a “respected member of the community” who offered the basement in his house for Friday Jumu’ah prayers. Police raided the illegal mosque after complaints from locals. Muslims are using basements, apartments, warehouses, and parking lots as worship sites, without basic facilities like ventilation or toilets, officials said.
Italy’s Explosion in Illegal Mosques Despite Draconian Restrictions
Greece’s crackdown on illegal mosques is likely being watched closely in Italy where officials have struggled to cope with an exponential rise in unauthorized Islamic places of worship. Historically, the country imposed draconian restrictions on non-Roman Catholic religious buildings under the Buffarini Guidi circular, drafted to combat the growth of Pentecostal churches in the 1930s. Officials rescinded the circular in 1955.
Italy’s Catholic bishops have advocated for the rights of Muslims to pray in the country making it unlikely that a repeat of what happened to Pentecostals in the twentieth century Italy will happen to Muslims. Nevertheless, some measure of regulation is likely given and other country’s in Europe where a legacy of state churches and a history of bureaucrats making it difficult for “new” religions to erect or operate centers of worship.
Unlike other religious communities in Italy, Muslims have never reached an agreement with the Italian State, as stipulated by Article 8 of the Constitution, which governs its relations. Agreements with non-Catholic religions are called “Intese” (Agreements) and can be requested through a specific procedure by any religious body with legal personality to obtain the status of “religious denomination” in accordance with Law 1159/1929 on “permitted religions.”
In June 2024, Italy’s Supreme Court ruled that the evangelical church Breccia di Roma’s worship space, which is located in a former shop a short distance from the Vatican, does not qualify as a religious edifice due to its non-traditional appearance. The court ordered the church to pay $50,000 in court costs and property tax arrears for what it classified as “commercial property.”
Clandestine mosques, however, are mushrooming at an increasing rate in Italy, according to a September 2025 investigation by deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini’s Lega Nord political party. The probe found 17 illegal mosques operating in Centocelle, Magliana, Torpignatarra, Esquilino, and other parts of Rome.
“In Italy, there are 1,400 [Islamic] associations and 1,200 illegal mosques,” Susanna Ceccardi, Member of the European Parliament for Lega Nord, noted. “There are 12 legal ones, and it’s not as if they don’t cause problems. Control is needed: sermons in Italian, openness to equality between men and women, and a census of illegal mosques.”
In January, Lega called for restrictions on new mosques in Italy’s Liguria region, citing the need to “ensure safety, public order, and the proper use of areas designated for religious services.”
“In this area [District V] of Rome, there are four Catholic churches and seven Muslim places of worship, a huge number compared to the number of churches,” Lega Nord councilor Mauro Marocchini warned. “The problem is that everything is left unchecked, without a real overall vision of the religious issue, because the Muslim culture is totally different from ours.”
Catholic Bishops’ Support for Building Mosques
Italy’s right-wing parties face strident opposition for their opposition to Islamic immigration from Pope Leo XIV and the Catholic bishops. In 2018, Raffaele Nogaro, bishop emeritus of Caserta, said he would “turn all the churches into mosques if it were useful to the cause and if it allowed us to save the lives of men and women.”
In 2016, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, archbishop of Bologna, called for a mosque to be built in the city. “I really think it’s time for a mosque in Bologna. Some people think otherwise, but they are wrong,” Zuppi said. “I also wish Islamic celebrations to be welcomed in schools as already requested by Angelo Scola, archbishop of Milan.”
In October 2025, Fr. Giacomo Cardinali, Vice Prefect of the Apostolic Library, confirmed that the Vatican had reserved an Islamic prayer space in the 15th-century edifice: “Some Muslim scholars have asked us for a room with a carpet for praying, and we have given it to them.”
Noting the gap between the response to illegal mosques in Greece and Italy, both European Union nations, Kent Ekeroth, an economist and former Sweden Democrats MP, told Focus on Western Islamism (FWI) that “The news about Greece cracking down on such mosques is welcome, since Islam is an ideology not compatible with European values.”
“On the other hand, unfortunately, Italy under Meloni seems to have let down her voters by being lax on immigration and failing to stop the Islamification of Italy,” he lamented.
Several European Union parliamentarians from Italy have raised their voices against the proliferation of both legal and illegal mosques. “Islamic centers are centers for indoctrination, even for children, where hate speech is preached: because, unfortunately, their goal is to spread their presence throughout the territory to take over the land,” Anna Maria Cisint, Lega MEP, warned.
“The topic of the spread of illegal mosques is an increasingly evident problem, to which we cannot close our eyes,” stressed Lega MEP Silvia Sardone. “We believe that the fight against Islamization and Islamism, given the growing dangers connected to the Muslim Brotherhood, is the battle of the coming decades. We are, with pride, following what Oriana Fallaci said when she was talking about ‘Eurabia.’”
Daniel Pipes, founder of the Middle East Forum, warns against using the force of law against Muslims to hinder the growth of Islamism in Western democracies. Islamism can and must confronted as an ideology without hindering the legitimate rights of Muslims to practice their faith.
“Would that Europeans had by now learned from the brilliance of the U.S. Constitution and the First Amendment of 1791, which bans any ‘law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.’ These eleven words remove the government from a role in deciding what faiths may be followed, what edifices may be built, or what preachers may express. Let the challenge of Islamism in Greece and Italy be tackled honestly, not by resorting to legalistic tricks.”