Cuba’s Crumbling Regime and the Church That Won’t Die

Fidel Castro tried to bury the church. His successors are still trying. And after sixty-six years, the Cuban communist state is running out of food, fuel, medicine, allies, and options.

The church, meanwhile, has never been stronger.

That’s the story. Not the sanctions. Not the politics. Not the collapse projections from think tanks. The story is that a regime built on the promise of a workers’ paradise has delivered a nation where seven out of ten people skip meals — and the institution it tried hardest to destroy is the one thing still standing.

The Collapse

Cuba’s economy has contracted 11% since 2020 under President Miguel Diaz-Canel. That number is catastrophic. For context, the US economy shrank 3.4% during the 2020 pandemic and people called it a crisis.

The regime projects 1% GDP growth for 2026. The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean projects 0.1%. Both numbers were met with mockery. Even the regime’s own economists don’t believe it.

Here’s what the numbers look like on the ground:

Power. Blackouts last up to 20 hours per day in some areas. Five nationwide blackouts hit between October 2024 and September 2025 — total grid failures, not brownouts. Without Venezuelan oil, the thermoelectric plants are predicted to go offline indefinitely within weeks.

Food. Seven in ten Cubans skip daily meals, according to the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights. The 2024-25 sugar harvest — once the engine of Cuba’s economy — produced only 165,000 metric tons, a fraction of historical output. The island that once exported sugar to the world can’t feed itself.

Medicine. Only 30% of essential medicines are available, per Cuba’s own Health Minister. Thirty percent. That means if you get sick in Cuba today, there’s a two-in-three chance the drug you need doesn’t exist on the island.

Tourism. Arrivals through April 2025 dropped 72% compared to the prior year. Hotel occupancy sits at 24.1%. The tourism industry that was supposed to be Cuba’s economic lifeline has flatlined.

People. 1.4 million Cubans have left the country between 2019 and 2024. One million in the last four years alone. They’re not leaving for vacation. They’re fleeing.

The Cuban peso trades at 405 to the dollar on the informal market — the only market most Cubans can access, because the official CPI conveniently excludes it. Inflation is officially 16.4%. Nobody believes that either.

This is not a recession. This is a state in freefall. Cuba is experiencing its worst economic crisis since Castro took power sixty-six years ago.

No Allies Left

For decades, Cuba survived on external life support. The Soviet Union kept the lights on until 1991. Then Venezuela stepped in. Hugo Chavez began shipping roughly 26,500 barrels of oil per day — about 50% of Cuba’s energy needs — in exchange for Cuban doctors, military advisers, and security personnel.

That’s over now.

On January 3, 2026, US forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Thirty-two Cuban officers were killed in the operation defending him. Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba stopped immediately. The island’s primary energy lifeline was cut in a single day.

And there’s nowhere else to turn.

Russia is too consumed by its own war in Ukraine to sustain Cuban oil supply. Mexico sent emergency fuel in late 2025 but halted shipments under pressure from Trump’s tariff threats. Algeria provides minor amounts — enough for a day.

On January 29, 2026, President Trump signed an executive order declaring a national emergency regarding Cuba — and establishing a tariff system allowing the US to impose duties on any country that sells oil to the island. The order didn’t just target Cuba. It targeted anyone willing to help Cuba.

Trump re-designated Cuba as a State Sponsor of Terrorism on his first day in office. Secretary Rubio approved the re-creation of the Cuba restricted list. The message is blunt: no more oil, no more money, make a deal.

Cuba’s government claims US sanctions cost $7.5 billion between March 2024 and February 2025. Whether or not the figure is inflated, the economic warfare is real and it is working.

The regime is more isolated than at any point since the Soviet collapse. Possibly more isolated than even that, because in 1991 Venezuela was waiting in the wings. Nobody is waiting now.

The Softening

Something is shifting. On January 14, Diaz-Canel said publicly that there are “no current talks with the US.” But behind closed doors, signals are different. Nearly 700 political prisoners sit in Cuban jails as of October 2025. At least 203 people were arbitrarily detained in the first half of 2025 alone.

The regime doesn’t want to negotiate. It has never wanted to negotiate. But want and need are different things. When your people are starving, your grid is collapsing, your oil supply is gone, and your last patron just got arrested — the math changes.

The question is what comes next. Will the regime release political prisoners as a goodwill gesture? Will it make meaningful concessions on human rights? Or will it tighten its grip, as authoritarian regimes so often do in their final chapters?

History suggests the answer is both. Regimes at the end make concessions and crack down simultaneously. They negotiate and imprison in the same week. Desperation makes them unpredictable.

The Church That Won’t Die

Now for the part that matters most.

In 1959, when Castro came to power, he set out to build a society without God. Religion was the opiate of the masses, and he intended to cut off the supply. Churches were shuttered. Pastors were imprisoned. Christians were surveilled, harassed, denied employment, and pushed to the margins of society.

It didn’t work.

In 1990, a revival broke out. House churches began multiplying across the island — 10,000 of them sprang up in the 1990s alone. Today, Cuba has approximately 25,000 evangelical and Protestant houses of worship. More than 16,000 evangelical churches have opened in the past 20 years. Conservative estimates put practicing Evangelicals at 10 to 15 percent of the population, the majority Pentecostal.

Read that again. Under a communist government that has actively suppressed religious expression for over six decades, the evangelical church has grown from a marginal presence to a movement of hundreds of thousands — possibly millions — of believers. The Smyrna principle holds. Persecution makes the church thrive.

Cuba ranks No. 24 on the 2026 Open Doors World Watch List. The persecution is systematic, though rarely violent in the way Iran’s is. Church leaders are surveilled. Independent churches — especially those that grow or operate outside official structures — are targeted. Churches cannot expand or buy land. There is no Christian radio or television. Administrative codes require government registration and permits for events, and permits can be delayed for years.

Pastors who speak out face arrest. Pastor Maikel Pupu Velazquez vanished on July 9, 2025, after delivering epilepsy medication to a child. A pastoral couple faces eight years in prison for mentioning God while standing up for their son. These are not edge cases. This is how the system works.

And the church keeps growing.

A personal word. I’m Cuban. I was born under this regime. I know what it does to families — the futures it steals, the hope it suffocates. And because of that, I carry a deep love for the Iranian people, the Nigerian believers, the Chinese underground church — every community living under the same boot in a different language. I pray for their freedom the way I pray for ours.

“Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went.” (Acts 8:4)

This is the pattern. Every time. Persecution scatters the church, and scattering spreads the gospel. The regime pushes believers underground, and they multiply in the dark. Communism is a system built on control. The Holy Spirit is not controllable.

CBN’s headline got it right: “How Suffering Made Cuba’s Church Grow.” House churches are the engine — small, flexible, nearly impossible to suppress. You can shut down a building. You can’t shut down a living room where six people are praying.

The Biblical Framework

The Letter to Smyrna

There are seven letters to seven churches in Revelation 2-3. Each church gets a diagnosis — strengths, weaknesses, warnings, promises.

Smyrna gets something unique. No rebuke. None.

“I know your tribulation and your poverty — but you are rich… Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.” (Revelation 2:9-10)

The poorest church gets the richest promise. The most persecuted congregation gets the most tender encouragement. Jesus doesn’t tell Smyrna to strategize. He tells them to endure. And He promises them a crown.

If any church in the world today resembles Smyrna, it’s the church in Cuba. Materially poor. Politically powerless. Faithful under suffering. And rich in the only currency that matters.

The Exodus Pattern

Cuba’s crisis invites an Exodus reading. An oppressive regime holding a people captive. Economic suffering as the system cracks under its own weight. A mass departure — 1.4 million people fleeing in five years, a modern exodus from an island prison.

The plagues broke Egypt’s economy before liberation came. Every plague struck at something Pharaoh depended on — water, livestock, crops, the firstborn who would inherit the throne. Cuba’s “plagues” — energy collapse, food crisis, the loss of Venezuela — are dismantling what the regime depends on.

This is not to say God is punishing the Cuban people. The plagues hit Egypt’s rulers and gods, not its slaves. But the pattern is there: when God intends to free a people, He first breaks the systems that hold them captive.

The Expiration Date of Empires

In Daniel 2, Nebuchadnezzar dreams of a massive statue — gold, silver, bronze, iron, clay. Each section represents a world empire. And then a stone “cut by no human hand” strikes the statue and crushes it to dust.

“The God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed… It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever.” (Daniel 2:44)

Babylon fell. Persia fell. Greece fell. Rome fell. The Soviet Union fell. Every empire that sets itself against God has an expiration date.

Cuba’s regime has one too. Praise God — it does.

That’s not a political prediction. It’s a theological certainty. God’s kingdom outlasts every human system — every ideology, every dictator, every five-year plan. The question is never whether such regimes end. It’s when. And what the church does in the meantime.

What Christians Should Do

Pray for Cuba Specifically

Pray for Pastor Velazquez, who has been missing since July 2025. Pray for the pastoral couple facing prison. Pray for the 25,000 house churches scattered across the island — for protection, for boldness, for bread. Pray for the 700 political prisoners. Pray for the millions who are simply trying to survive another day with no power, no medicine, and no food.

Prepare to Support the Church

When the regime opens — whether gradually or suddenly — the Cuban church will need support. Seminary training. Bibles. Building materials. Leadership development. The church has survived persecution. The harder test may be what comes after. Prepare now.

Don’t Confuse Political Liberation with Spiritual Victory

The church in Cuba is already winning. Not by political metrics — by kingdom metrics. Believers are being made. The gospel is spreading. Disciples are being formed in living rooms with no electricity. The kingdom of God does not depend on regime change. It has been advancing under this regime for decades.

Political freedom is a good thing. A necessary thing. But it is not the ultimate thing. The ultimate thing is already happening.

Ask the Harder Question

The church thrives under pressure. History proves it. Cuba proves it. Iran proves it. China proves it.

But will it survive prosperity?

That’s the question the American church should be asking itself. Cuba’s believers are faithful with nothing. What’s our excuse?

Seeds

In a 1993 interview, a reporter asked Fidel Castro whether heaven would include socialism. He laughed. He was still confident then — still certain that the revolution would outlast the faith.

He nationalized the churches. He imprisoned the pastors. He told a generation of children that religion was a relic of the ignorant past.

He’s dead. The pastors’ spiritual children now number in the hundreds of thousands.

Castro tried to bury the church. He didn’t realize it was a seed.

You’re in my prayers.

Sources: Foreign Affairs: Cuba on the Brink; Human Rights Watch: World Report 2026 — Cuba; NBC News: Cubans brace for economic devastation; PBS: Cuba faces uncertain future after Maduro removal; The Conversation: Cuba is isolated and vulnerable; White House Fact Sheet: Cuba; NPR/WBUR: Without Venezuelan oil, Cuba’s crisis worsens; Open Doors: Cuba; CBN: How Suffering Made Cuba’s Church Grow; Christianity Today: 50 Countries Most Dangerous for Christians 2026; ICC: Cuba Archives

This article is part of our current events coverage. For more on the persecuted church worldwide, see our Christian Persecution 2026 feature.