ECtHR Questions Spain over Ban on Christian Father Sharing Faith with His Son
On 11 June 2026, the European Court of Human Rights communicated the application of an evangelical father prohibited by Spanish courts from taking his son to church, reading the Bible with him or otherwise sharing his faith until the child reaches twelve. The ECtHR has asked Spain whether state religious neutrality can be extended to parents inside their own homes and whether the restrictions were imposed without evidence that the father’s religious practices had harmed the child.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) communicated M.J.B.D. v. Spain to the Spanish Government on 11 June 2026, opening a new stage in a case previously reported by OIDAC Europe. The application concerns an evangelical father who was prohibited from taking his young son to church, reading Bible passages with him or otherwise providing him with evangelical religious instruction. The father lodged his application before the ECtHR on 19 September 2025.
The dispute began in February 2022, when the child’s mother asked the Juzgado de Primera Instancia n.º 6 de Alcobendas (Alcobendas Court of First Instance No. 6) to give her exclusive authority over their son’s religious upbringing. The child was six years old. During his time with his son, the father had taken him to evangelical services on Sundays, shown him Bible passages on a tablet and spoken to him about his beliefs. On 27 May 2022, the court granted the mother exclusive authority over religious decisions until the child reached twelve and expressly prohibited the father from continuing those activities.
The Audiencia Provincial de Madrid (Madrid Provincial Court) upheld the restrictions on 13 January 2023. It reasoned that the parents had not provided the child with religious instruction while they lived together and that the father could continue practising his religion alone, provided that he refrained from taking his son with him. This reduced the father’s freedom of religion to an individual activity separated from family life and prevented him from sharing ordinary expressions of faith with his own child.
The father challenged the restrictions before the Tribunal Constitucional (Constitutional Court), arguing that they violated his religious freedom and his right to guide his son’s religious and moral education. In Judgment 119/2025 of 26 May 2025, the Constitutional Court dismissed his appeal. It held that parents’ freedom to transmit their beliefs is limited by the child’s freedom not to share those convictions or be subjected to acts of “proselytism”. The Court regarded the restriction as a way of protecting the child’s ability to make his own religious decisions once he reached sufficient maturity.
The decision imposed a far-reaching restriction without identifying how attending Sunday worship or reading the Bible with his father had harmed the child. It also gave the mother exclusive authority to determine the child’s religious formation, while the father was required to remove the expression of his evangelical faith from the family life he shared with his son. Treating the absence of religious formation as the neutral option risks giving a non-religious position automatic priority whenever separated parents disagree about faith.
The questions now put to Spain by the ECtHR address this concern directly. The Court has asked whether the State’s duty to remain neutral in religious matters can be treated as an obligation for parents to remain religiously neutral when educating their children inside their own homes. It has also asked whether the Spanish courts examined how reading biblical psalms and accompanying the child to Sunday worship caused him any physical or psychological harm, and whether they struck a fair balance between the competing interests.
The father argues that the domestic decisions violated his right to family and private life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights and his freedom of religion under Article 9, both separately and together with the prohibition of religious discrimination under Article 14. The ECtHR has also asked whether the prohibition is compatible with Article 2 of Protocol No. 1, which requires States to respect parents’ right to ensure education and teaching in accordance with their religious and philosophical convictions.
By asking whether the restrictions were supported by any evidence of physical or psychological harm, the ECtHR places the focus on what the Spanish decisions left unclear: why ordinary and non-coercive practices such as reading the Bible or attending Sunday worship justified excluding the father from his son’s religious upbringing. Its eventual judgment could define how far public authorities may intervene in the transmission of faith between parents and children.
Source: European Court of Human Rights, Previous OIDAC Europe Coverage