Article source: evangelicalfocus.com
Stephan Maag has been evangelising on the streets for many years. From his native Switzerland, he is known for carrying his 40 kg collapsible cross to places where he talks about the existence of God, prays for those who ask him to and explains what it means to follow Jesus.
In the 28 countries he has visited, he has been able to make his pilgrimage (he usually walks about 10 kilometres) without any problems, arousing the curiosity of passers-by and receiving relatively good treatment from the local security forces.
However, his recent trip to Monaco, a microstate in south-eastern France, ended badly, according to the Swiss media outlet Livenet.ch.
Everything seemed to be going well at the start of his visit to Monaco, which he always makes with a second person from his ministry. “You can see that they are all very, very rich, the cars are extremely extravagant and the houses are also extremely ostentatious… but I had the feeling that people were genuinely interested – that amazed me”, explains Maag.
At one point, two police officers stopped them to check their documentation. After consulting with their superiors, “they said we had to go to the police station, and two police cars drove up with their blue lights flashing. We had to stand by the car and we were searched and arrested”.
“We were taken to a concrete cell where there were other people, beggars and others who are probably not welcome in Monaco”, the evangelist continues. After an hour of waiting, “they came back and said we had to leave, that this was not allowed in Monaco”.
Stephan Maag tried to appeal to religious freedom and fundamental rights of expression. 2They became nervous, went outside – and then came back in and explained that this was only allowed inside buildings, but not on public property. They also said the cross was too big, but a smaller one would not be a problem”. According to the street evangelist, he was finally told that the orders came ‘from above’ and that they had to dismantle the cross and leave Monaco.
Before leaving, the team asked for a written explanation of the reason for their expulsion. “They said there was no explanation, that Monaco was a special place, that we had to accept that, pack up and leave”, they were told.
In other places of Europe
The experienced evangelist says that “nothing like this has ever happened to us in Europe”.
In Brussels, for example, the police prevented him from accessing certain areas of the city for security reasons. In Paris, the police officers with whom the bearer of the Cross first came into contact told him that he had the right to move freely and even informed all the other officers of this, to avoid any inconvenience.
According to Livenet.ch, Stephan Maag and his cross are checked by the police in about a third of the countries they visit. One of their future goals is to make a pilgrimage to areas such as the Balkans and Greece.
Click here to KEEP UPDATED on the latest news by subscribing to our FREE weekly newsletter.
> Please support Christian media and journalism in South Africa. Help us to spread the Word of God and take a stand for the truth by making a donation to our ministry. We appreciate your support. Click here to take hands with JOY! Magazine.
Date published: 20/12/2025
Feature image: Evangelist Stephan Maag, in Monaco, end of November 2025. / Photo: Facebook Stephan Maag.
DISCLAIMER
JOY! News is a Christian news portal that shares pre-published articles by writers around the world. Each article is sourced and linked to the origin, and each article is credited with the author’s name. Although we do publish many articles that have been written in-house by JOY! journalists, we do not exclusively create our own content. Any views or opinions presented on this website are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the company.
