In December 2011, Lebanon’s State Council ratified a decision to outlaw group prayer sessions organized by Christian practitioners, alleging that the activity threatened public order. For several years prior to the decision, a resident of Jeita (a small town north of Beirut) had held collective prayers in a lounge located on his property. The local religious authorities grew worried about these gatherings: two local parishes (one Maronite and one Greek Catholic) expressed their displeasure to the local police, who responded by prohibiting these prayers to avoid a public safety hazard. Some worshippers involved in these collective acts of prayer claimed the ban amounted to a violation of their right to religious freedom. They brought the case to Lebanon’s State Council, which supported the local police’s decision. The Council judgment stipulated that “unless it is legally recognized, a group or assembly (whatever its name) cannot practice religious acts of worship.” It also clarified that collective acts of worship can only be held in buildings or spaces that belong to one of the Lebanese sects recognized by the state. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Jeita and interviews with lawyers and politicians involved in the case, this paper argues that adjudicating religious freedom cases in Lebanon sometimes helps consolidate the country’s sectarian architecture. “Religious freedom,” said the State Council in an earlier statement, “is linked to the sectarian system, which requires each Lebanese to belong to one of the official sects.” This means that in a country like Lebanon, the struggles, tensions and contestations over religious freedom and public order do not occur between the state and its citizens, but within in the “infrapolitics” of the Lebanese religious communities.The paper also shows that secularism and sectarianism are not always opposed, and that the secular norm of religious freedom can also reinforce sectarian divisions.