Evangelical Christians in Italy are fighting to defend their churches after more than 20 have been shut down in the last three years.

Local authorities are closing evangelical worship centres in northern Italy because they are not technically authorised to function as churches, Evangelical Focus reports.

In the Lombardy region alone, 27 places of worship have been closed. This affected around 40 Christian communities because some were used by more than one. 

Pastor Daniel Magnin, leader of a church in Milan, said: 'Some communities that lost their meeting houses, now gather in private houses, but many have directly disappeared.'

New evangelical churches tend to rent premises licensed as perhaps a restaurant, or formerly used as a warehouse or for storage.

If the buildings have not been explicitly approved to be churches, they risk being closed at any time.

'There have been cases of communities that bought a building with a loan, remodeled it to adapt it to their needs, and now they are still paying the fees, but they cannot use it. They lost everything they have invested,' said Magnin, who managed to get his own church authorised a few months ago.

He said that in Milan, there are more than 100 evangelical churches and very few have a legally recognised place of worship. The problems have arisen after new regulations on the opening of places worship in Italty were introduced.