RUSSIA RELIGION NEWS


Catholic influence in Belarus is growing

THE EXPULSION OF THE ARCHBISHOP

In a new stage of the Belorussian revolution, Lukashenko clumsily included the "religious factor."

by Alexander Soldatov

Novaia Gazeta, 3 September 2020

 

To the numerous crimes against its own people, the regime of Lukashenko added on 31 August yet another, of an extremely sensitive nature. For the first time in the modern history of Europe, a primate of a national Catholic church has not been allowed onto the territory of a country. And in Belarus, by the way, it is the second largest confession. In committing clear lawlessness with regard to Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, who has headed the community of 1.5 million Belorussian Catholics for 13 years, Lukashenko is provoking inter-confessional tension and also giving the opposition a "religious argument."

 

The head of the Catholic episcopate of Belarus—Metropolitan of Minsk and Mogilev Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz and a citizen of Belarus—went into the Polish region of Belostok for several days, where his relatives live. According to Lukashenko's account, on those days the hierarch "received certain assignments." At the same time the dictator hinted that the decision not to admit its citizen into Belarus was made jointly with Russia.

 

In fact, Kondrusiewicz, who was born in the U.S.S.R. in 1946, has a great deal to do with this country. He graduated with honors from the Leningrad Polytechnical Institute and he worked in the Volga automobile factory. He became a priest in 1981 in Vilnius and he served in Belarus from 1988, becoming a bishop in 1989. In April 1991, John Paul II elevated Kondrusiewicz to archbishop and appointed him apostolic administrator of the European part of Russia. In Moscow, Kondrusiewicz developed strained relation with the Moscow patriarchate, especially with the head of the Department for External Church Relations, Metropolitan Kirill Gundiaev.

 

After Kondrusiewicz condemned the persecution of religious minorities in the R.F. in 2006, he was removed from the Moscow See, not without the participation of the patriarchate.

 

In Belarus, the metropolitan archbishop conducted himself politically correctly: he met with Lukashenko periodically and supported his assurances that "ideal inter-confessional peace reigns" in the country. Sometimes Lukashenko even tried to invite the Roman pope to the country or to act as a mediator in arranging his meeting with the patriarch of Moscow. Nevertheless, where the principal confession of the country—the Belorussian Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (BPTsMP)—felt completely dependent on the government, Catholics displayed a more independent, "universal" character. Of course, they could not help but condemn the clear violence of security forces in the first days after the 9 August election. In its own way, the BPTsMP also tried to condemn them, but this was ended by the quick resignation of the patriarchal exarch of all-Belarus, Metropolitan Pavel (Novaia Gazeta wrote about this here and there).

 

Apparently, the detonator of Lukashenko's wrath against Kondrusiewicz was his interview on 30 August with the Polish television channel Trwam, in which the archbishop acknowledged that the election went off "dishonestly." At the same time, he also distanced himself from the opposition: "We do not know what values they represent. . . . This bothers us very much."

 

On the global scale, what was happening with Kondrusiewicz was pointed out by American Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who condemned the arbitrariness of the Belorussian Border Service. And the Conference of Catholic Bishops in Belarus (without Kondrusiewicz, seven of them remain) pointed out that the laws of the country do not provide for keeping a citizen of Belarus out of his own country, no matter what he is guilty of.

 

The vicar bishop, Yury Kosobutsky, who stepped into the administration of the Minsk Catholic diocese, maintains that for the church, Kondrusiewicz's fate "is no longer politics. . . . The metropolitan did not support any of the candidates before the election, and after it he did not make any political statements but only called for honesty, a responsible approach, ending of violence, and dialogue." Against the background of the vague and morally impotent position of the BPTsMP, Kondrusiewicz's attempts to make contact with the dictator who had isolated himself with his inner circle, in order to put an end to bloodshed and torture and get political prisoners released, evoked respect among the Belarusians. According to observations of religious studies scholars, a turning toward Catholicism has begun in Belarus.

 

Meanwhile, the Moscow patriarchate has been demonstrating its sympathy for Lukashenko. Twice in August, Patriarch Kirill managed to congratulate the dictator, and the hegumen Petr, who is serving in Moscow as the confessor of the Minsk Edinoverie parish of the BPTsMP, published a real panegyric "to the profoundly respected comrade president." He sees in the exile of Kondrusiewicz "the active support of Orthodox communities and parishes of the Belorussian exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church." He calls protests against the falsification of the election "civil strife sown in the republic of Belarus by external forces and enemies of our Orthodox Slavic unity."

 

Lukashenko's clumsy actions in domestic and foreign politics, which are now also putting him at odds with the Catholic world, lead to only one thought. There is now under way an attempt to deprive Belarus of political identity so that its absorption by the R.F. will not seem too scandalous or treacherous. Whether this attempt succeeds depends on the maturity of Belorussian civil society, an important role in which is now being played by Catholics with their western Christian values. (tr. by PDS, posted 3 September 2020)


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