``For people of faith there are no embargoes, there are no barriers,'' said the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, secretary general of the National Council of Churches in Christ U.S.A.
``Jesus tells us to love our neighbors.... It is on behalf of Jesus the liberator that we work against this embargo,'' Campbell said. ``We ask you to forgive the suffering that has come to you by the actions of the United States.''
For the Cuban government, it was more than a mere religious gathering. It was an opportunity to gain political support, at home with Protestant groups and with top religious leaders visiting from the United States.
Campbell drew cheers and applause from those attending the Cuban Evangelical Celebration in Havana's Plaza of the Revolution.
``There are a million people in the United States praying for this event,'' said Campbell, whose council includes most major Protestant and Eastern Orthodox denominations in the United States.
Organizers of the service billed it as the first Protestant gathering of its kind in Cuba and the largest ever in the Caribbean. Several tens of thousands streamed into the plaza for a morning of hymns, prayer and praise under an unrelenting tropical sun.
Wearing his traditional olive green fatigues and cap, Castro sat in a folding chair facing the stage. Also present were Vice President Carlos Lage, Havana Communist Party chief Esteban Lazo, new Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque and many other cabinet members -- indicating the level of importance the government placed on the event.
``Love, Peace, Unity,'' read a sign on the stage located a few hundred yards from the Interior Ministry building, which bears a towering image of one of Cuba's most famous atheists -- the late revolutionary Che Guevara.
The majority of those in the crowd were believers from 49 different Protestant denominations around the island. Some, however, said their work centers or neighborhood leaders pressured them to attend -- even if they were not Christians.
``I am kind of embarrassed because I don't know the words,'' said one young woman who wouldn't give her name. A man, who also wouldn't give his name, said leaders of his communist neighborhood watch group stopped by his home encouraging him to attend.
The communist government has always gotten along better with Cuba's Protestant denominations than with the Roman Catholic Church, which clashed with the government after Castro came to power in 1959.
Many Cuban officials still identify the Catholic Church with the conservative upper classes that went into exile in the early 1960s, remembering that three Catholic priests accompanied exiles in 1961's ill-fated Bay of Pigs attack.
The Catholic Church has gained more government acceptance in recent years, and in January 1998, Pope John Paul II celebrated Mass in the same plaza before hundreds of thousands of people. Castro wore a dark suit and tie for that occasion.
Protestant groups are largely credited with persuading Castro to change the government from an officially atheist one to a secular one in the early 1990s.
About the same time, the Communist Party agreed to accept religious believers as members. There are now two Protestant ministers who serve on Cuba's National Assembly.
``There has been a growth in openness by the government,'' said the Rev. Bill McAtee of Lexington, Ky., top representative of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A.
``I've been coming here since 1990 and I have seen dramatic change,'' he said. ``The churches have become more involved outside the walls in the church and are now working in the community.''
© Copyright 1999 The Associated Press