By John Rice, Associated Press

HAVANA (AP) --- A fervent, swinging version of the old hymn "How Great Thou Art'' thunders from a storefront church crowded with worshippers who spill out into parked bicycles on the sidewalk, praying, singing and clapping hands.

Passers-by gaze curiously at them.

"The spirit of God is raising up the people,'' says Jorge Fernandez, a preacher participating in the service. "These are the last days. The coming of Jesus Christ is near.''

Evangelical and Pentecostal groups like the Prince of Peace Church are booming in Cuba --- sometimes almost rocking and rolling. It is an era of unusual religious openness on the island.

Many Protestant leaders say they hope the Jan. 21-25 visit of Pope John Paul II will benefit their churches as well as John Paul's Catholic flock.

"It is a visit that is going to promote the religious sentiments of the people,'' said Raul Suarez, probably Cuba's most prominent Baptist pastor and a member of Cuba's Parliament.

Suarez thinks the papal visit will show "Cuba is not a hell one must flee. ... If the pope comes to Cuba it means Cuba is like all other countries.''

Before Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution, Cuba was overwhelmingly, if often only nominally, Catholic. But today only about 40 percent of Cubans are baptized Catholics.

And though there are far fewer nominal Protestants than Catholics, attendance may be higher at Protestant churches.

Official figures do not exist, but University of Havana religion expert Enrique Lopez Oliva estimates there are 650 Catholic churches and 900 Protestant churches in Cuba.

In addition, 2,500 homes are used as Protestant churches or prayer centers across the island, five times the number used by Catholics, he says.

Those estimates may be low. New "houses of worship'' are popping up all the time.

Hugo Reyes Hidalgo, a regional Assembly of God church leader, says his denomination has 1,000 houses of worship in Cuba --- some with 1,000-member congregations --- in addition to several hundred formal churches.

"The people are coming to church and there is a great spiritual hunger among the people,'' said Reyes, a pastor since 1969.

Many among the 54 officially recognized Protestant denominations, such as the Baptists and Methodists, also have such houses of worship, which serve people who live far from churches.

Other denominations are unauthorized, such as Fernandez' Mexico-based Christian Comradeship.

Fernandez said he assists at 37 unauthorized houses of worship, all formed since 1991, when the Communist Party dropped its ban on worshipers as members. A year later, the government declared that it was no longer officially atheist.

Despite the greater openness, some churches often face resistance from local officials, some of whom have suggested small churches are used as CIA fronts. Fernandez said he was briefly jailed in 1993 for preaching.

One preacher, Orson Villa, was recently freed after spending a year in prison in Camaguey province, apparently because his large services were unauthorized.

Reyes said his church has had to close some houses of worship because of pressure from provincial officials.

As Reyes spoke to a reporter in the office of his Pentecostal Evangelical Church, some 250 people --- equal parts blacks and whites --- clapped and sang along with a band whose trumpets blared and drums crashed.

During the Sunday evening service, a policeman at the door tapped his feet in time to the music and perused a religious tract someone had handed him.

Both Reyes and Suarez said their churches had gone through difficult times in the early 1960s and '70s, when Cuba embraced Soviet-style socialism and tried to enforce atheism.

Believers were banned from many jobs and often treated with suspicion or worse by Communist Party activists.

"In the 1960s, they publicly called for having me sent `to the wall' for being an Evangelical,'' said Reyes, alluding to the public executions of the revolution's early years.

A major turning point, came with the 1984 visit to Cuba of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who took Castro to a Methodist service attended by top Catholic and Protestant leaders state television.

"We were very joyful to see that,'' Reyes said. "Beyond that, the public began to think: `Well, if the comandante visits a church, why can't I?'''

© 1998 Associated Press