The editor of The Church of Ireland Gazette, Canon Ian Ellis, has called for a renewed determination in the international community to protect religious freedom around the world.

Canon Ellis made the call in a special sermon to mark the Church of Ireland's 'Hard Gospel Sunday'. Hard Gospel is a Church reconciliation project three years in the running, working to overcome sectarian divisions and build fruitful relations with the 'other'.

He affirmed the ministry of reconciliation given to Christians by Jesus but said that "to perform this ministry, of course, we must be free to do so".

"Sadly, we live in a world where such freedom is not everywhere to be found and often, where it does exist, it is not properly valued," he told the congregation at St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, on Sunday.

Canon Ellis later turned his attention to the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China. The communist country is well known for its heavy handed restrictions on religious worship and has in recent months come under fire from Christian watchdogs accusing China of a crackdown on unofficial house churches.

He pointed specifically to the recent assertions from the Rev Kwok Nai-Wang, a theological consultant to the Christian Conference of Asia, that there was still no substantial evidence of an improvement in the human rights situation in China. He also declared that religious freedom in China existed only so long as believers did not make any challenges to the political status quo.

"Religion is a vital part of human experience. It always has been and it always will be. So, there must be a renewed determination in the international community to protect religious freedom around the world," he said.

"It is when we look to our inspiration, Christ, that we find at the heart of his ministry the Cross itself.

"That way was the way of true peace and real healing: this is the message with which we are entrusted and, indeed, the message with which the Hard Gospel Project is concerned; this is the message of God's reconciliation.

"May our world become a place in which there is greater freedom for us to proclaim that message, and greater freedom for the Church to fulfil its ministry.

Canon Ellis also highlighted the findings of Olympic Watch, the international human rights group, which said that media freedom in China was "nowhere in sight".