AKIPRESS.COM - Parishioners wiped away tears and gave thanks to God as the first Roman Catholic church built since the 1959 Cuban revolution opened its doors on Saturday, CNN reports. 

That the communist-run government allowed a new church to be built, with two more on the way, represents another milestone in the state's evolving relationship with organized religion.

Immediately after Fidel Castro took power in 1959, his revolutionary government cracked down on religion. Castro viewed the Catholic Church as a particularly dangerous threat to the atheist state he envisioned for Cuba. The revolution soon closed down all parochial schools, sent priests to reeducation camps and drove organized religion underground.

But after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Fidel Castro tried to break the isolation enveloping Cuba by inviting Pope John Paul II to the island. Christmas was restored as a holiday in Cuba and slowly people of faith said they no longer feared worshiping openly.

In 2014, then Cuban President Raul Castro publicly thanked Pope Francis for aiding the secret negotiations that led to the restoration of diplomatic ties with the United States. Shortly thereafter, work began on building the church in Sandino.

Nearly $100,000 for the new structure was raised by the St. Lawrence Catholic Church in Tampa which after Miami has one of the largest enclaves of Cubans in Florida.

Finding building materials in Cuba itself often seems to require divine intervention, and the construction of the church dragged on for four years.

The bright yellow church -- which seats 200 people -- stands out among the drab Soviet-style apartment buildings that fill the remote Western Cuban town.