Ohio Republican Attorney General David Yost submitted an amicus brief in the case against Chris Avell, the pastor of Dad’s Place Church in Bryan, Ohio, who was charged by local officials for helping the homeless in his city and opening the doors of the building as a shelter.

Avell started operating his ministry twenty-four hours per day in the spring of 2023, but city officials in Bryan sent a cease and desist letter demanding that he stop welcoming homeless people as overnight guests or face prosecution. The city filed eighteen more charges against Avell, according to a summary from First Liberty Institute, which is representing the pastor.

Avell was most recently found guilty last month on a criminal charge of violating the city fire code. The minister was penalized with a $200 fine and a sixty-day suspended jail sentence.

The brief submitted by Yost in the Court of Appeals of Ohio said the case was about “religious liberty” since Dad’s Place Church is conducting ministry that is “paradigmatically religious.”

“It fits favorably into the history of charitable works that have grown out of a millennia-long religious commitment to serve those in the community who find themselves in need of spiritual, social, or physical warmth,” Yost wrote. “The city sought to burden the church’s ministry, so the church asserted its religious-liberty rights under both the Ohio and federal constitutions.”

Yost continued by noting that the Ohio state constitution indeed requires a “strict scrutiny” standard for such claims. The official wrote that the court should follow the “legal mandate to protect the religious liberty of Dad’s Place” as required by the state constitution, as well as “allow Dad’s Place to follow its religious mandate to help the poor and vulnerable among us.”