Sandino, Cuba (CNN) 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.

"To see this finished is like coming out of the night into the day," said Rev. Cirilo Castro, the Cuban priest who oversaw construction of the church. "We knew it would happen one day."

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.

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