Patriarch-Pope talks possible after rifts overcome: Moscow Patriarchate

September 25, 2008

Rehearsing a familiar stance, a spokesman for the Moscow patriarchate told Interfax that Patriarch Alexei II could meet with Pope Benedict XVI-- but only after the Russian Orthodox Church is satisfied with the Vatican's answers to complaints about "proselytism" by Catholics in the "canonical territory" of the Orthodox Church. The Vatican has consistently rejected the idea that eastern Europe is the "canonical territory" of the Moscow patriarchate, and argued that Catholic missionaries are evangelizing the unchurched, not Orthodox believers. These arguments were repeated after President Alexandr Lukashenko of Belarus suggested an ecumenical summit meeting in his country.

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Lukashenko says he'd like Orthodox, Catholic Church heads to meet in Belarus

24 September 2008, 13:22

Minsk, September 24, Interfax - Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has said he would like the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia and the Pope to meet in Belarus.

"I would very much like a meeting of the Moscow Patriarch and the Roman [Catholic] Pope to take place here in Belarus, in the center of Europe and at a meeting point of Orthodoxy and Catholicism," Lukashenko said in an interview with the Western media.

The president, however, admitted that "it is impossible today for certain known reasons."

In spite of this, "we, following the principles of hospitality and respecting our Catholics, have invited this great person [the pope] to visit Belarus," he said.

"I strongly regret that the incumbent pope's predecessor - John Paul II - did not come to Belarus. He wanted very much to visit our country. He loved Belarus absolutely sincerely," Lukashenko said.

The Belarusian president said he sees no reasons for religious conflicts in his country.

"It will never happen in Belarus. We have proclaimed a principle: everyone has to find his own path to the Church, if he wants to follow this path," he said.

In Belarus, "an Orthodox church and a Catholic cathedral are situated across the street from each other," the president said.

"We have never seen any confrontations, any reproaches, or wry glances between Catholic and Orthodox believers. And we will not see them," Lukashenko said.

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Celebration of Russia’s Baptism anniversary to demonstrate unity of Orthodox people

09/19/2008 04:14 PM

The celebration of the 1020th anniversary of the Baptism of Russia in autumn 2008 will demonstrate the unity of the Eastern Orthodox Christians, the message of the Synod of the Belarusian Orthodox Church says on the occasion of the anniversary.

According to the message, the celebration of the 1020th anniversary of the Baptism of Russia in Moscow and Kiev confirmed the choice of the religious people of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. “We all see and witness that today just like centuries ago the hearts of people are warmed by hope and memory of the fact that Rus is the Home of the Virgin Mary,” the message says.

In autumn 2008, the Belarusian Eastern Orthodox Church will hold a series of festive events dedicated to two remarkable anniversaries - the 1020th anniversary of the Baptism of Russia and the 10th anniversary of the revival of the Belarusian Eastern Orthodox book printing (this year will mark the 10th anniversary of the publishing house of the Belarusian exarchate).

Viktor Popov, editor of the publishing house of the Belarusian exarchate, told BelTA that the programme of the celebrations includes the presentation of new interesting editions. Among them is a book of colourful reproductions of Belarusian, Ukrainian and Russian icons. A series of books “My holy name” about lives of saints has been designed for kids. The collection of discourses and interviews of Metropolitan Filaret and other high-quality books on the history of the Church are being published.

In late October Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexis II is expected to visit Belarus.

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BELARUS: Orthodox complain of KGB intimidation at village funeral

By Geraldine Fagan, Forum 18 News Service http://www.forum18.org

Fr Ioann Grudnitsky – who has already been fined for conducting services without state registration – faced further intimidation when he conducted the funeral of a parishioner in the village of Ruzhany, he told Forum 18 News Service. Village Council leader Leonid Moskalevich showed him an order from the KGB secret police banning him from leading the funeral as his parish – he is under the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad Provisional Supreme Church Authority – is not registered. However, he went ahead while Moskalevich and a police officer observed. "After working our whole lives in factories and on collective farms, sacrificing our health and receiving a tiny pension, we've reached a point where we have to ask permission from the local KGB secret police to organise a funeral!" the parishioners complained in an open letter to the President. "The local KGB has no right whatsoever to interfere in the life of the church." Moskalevich denied to Forum 18 that the document had come from the KGB or that it was a ban. Meanwhile, Grodno-based Baptist pastor Yuri Kravchuk is the latest pastor to be fined for leading unregistered worship.

The KGB secret police in Pruzhany District, close to the border with Poland, has tried to stop an Orthodox priest from leading a funeral in the local village of Ruzhany, the priest, Fr Ioann Grudnitsky, told Forum 18 News Service on 16 September. "They're starting to meddle in believers' affairs again." Yet Leonid Moskalevich, who heads Ruzhany Village Council (Brest Region), denied to Forum 18 that this was the case on 17 September: "It wasn't like that at all."

In Belarus, religious activity not sanctioned by the state is subject to prosecution under Soviet-era provisions of the Administrative Violations Code. Yuri Kravchuk, a Baptist pastor in the north-western regional centre of Grodno, is the latest to be fined.

After displaying a document from Pruzhany District KGB prohibiting Fr Ioann from conducting the funeral of Ruzhany parishioner Nina Levizarovich on 23 July, Moskalevich and a local police officer remained for the service's duration at the village cemetery, Fr Ioann told Forum 18. While the state representatives did not stop the funeral from going ahead, said the priest, they refused to give him a copy of the KGB instruction.

Fr Ioann Grudnitsky belongs to the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad Provisional Supreme Church Authority, a body of Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (ROCA) members who refused to support the May 2007 reunification of their church with the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate).

The authorities in Belarus do not permit any Orthodox body to function outside the Moscow Patriarchate (see F18News 6 November 2003 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=177). The ROCA Provisional Supreme Church Authority's website states that its seven parishes in Belarus do not hold services. Orthodox believers who belong to the Moscow Patriarchate have also experienced harassment by the authorities (see F18News 12 May 2008 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1127).

Ruzhany parishioners are "indignant" that Moskalevich, the village council chairman, threatened Fr Ioann with the KGB secret police instruction forbidding him to conduct the funeral. Before her death, Levizarovich had specifically requested that Fr Ioann lead her funeral, they point out in an open letter to President Aleksandr Lukashenko published on the Russian religious affairs website Portal-Credo on 10 September.

"After working our whole lives in factories and on collective farms, sacrificing our health and receiving a tiny pension, we've reached a point where we have to ask permission from the local KGB secret police to organise a funeral!" the parishioners exclaim in disbelief. "The local KGB has no right whatsoever to interfere in the life of the church – first and foremost they should shed tears of repentance on behalf of their Chekist predecessors who swam in human blood."

The Belarusian KGB – which has not changed its name since Soviet times - has made no attempt to distance itself from its Soviet past. It proudly traces its history back to the first Soviet secret police, the Cheka, which was founded by Felix Dzerzhinsky.

In the 1920s "Chekists stood shoulder to shoulder with the entire Belarusian people in resolving the most difficult and pressing economic and social tasks before them," the KGB's official website maintains, before claiming that the organisation was actually a victim of Stalin's purges in the 1930s: "23,000 Chekists were repressed - the very best professionals, moreover, Dzerzhinsky's comrades, outstanding people with rich and sensitive souls, selflessly serving the Motherland and fighting for a bright future for their country."

Moskalevich, the chairman of Ruzhany Village Council, insisted to Forum 18 on 17 September that the document he had shown Fr Ioann Grudnitsky was not from the KGB secret police, but simply confirmation of the fact that Fr Ioann was conducting the funeral. Stressing that he and a local police officer had not taken any measures against Fr Ioann, Moskalevich then explained that they had drawn up the document at the request of the village council. Asked if this was because Fr Ioann's Ruzhany parish of SS Sophia and her Three Daughters, Faith, Hope and Charity is unregistered, Moskalevich responded that the funeral had taken place at the request of Nina Levizarovich's daughter and did not therefore qualify as an illegal religious gathering in his view.

Under Belarus' restrictive 2002 Religion Law, which was strongly backed by the Belarusian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate), state registration is compulsory for all religious communities and unregistered religious activity is illegal – against international human rights standards.

Due to this law, Fr Ioann Grudnitsky was fined a total of 4,080,000 Belarusian Roubles (12,106 Norwegian Kroner, 1,555 Euros or 1,825 US Dollars) for celebrating the Orthodox liturgy without state permission on three occasions in 2005 in private homes in Ruzhany village. A parishioner, 65-year-old Liliya Yukhnovskaya, was also fined 72,000 Belarusian Roubles (214 Norwegian Kroner, 27 Euros or 32 US Dollars) for making her home available for a fourth service (see F18News 9 November 2005 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=684).

Fr Ioann told Forum 18 that he has not been fined since 2005 – but no longer conducts home worship in Ruzhany. In their recent open letter, the Ruzhany parishioners point out that they did not receive any response to a state registration application submitted in that year. "According to the Constitution, every person in the Republic of Belarus is free in belief, religion and its practice," they complain. "Why are we deprived of this right?"

Brest region's top religious affairs official, Vasili Marchenko, wrote to Liliya Zasimovich of Fr Ioann's parish in 2005 urging the 120-strong community to attend the village Moscow Patriarchate church of SS Peter and Paul instead. There, "normal conditions have been created for the performance of religious rites by all who wish," he maintained (see F18News 9 November 2005 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=684).

In a leaked January 2005 report, the same official bemoaned the fact that for two years, "state representatives have found neither the time nor the opportunity to influence these believers [Fr Ioann's Ruzhany parishioners] or to assist the local priest in returning them to the fold of the [Moscow Patriarchate] church" (see F18News 18 November 2005 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=691).

Marchenko's colleague Aleksandr Tsyrelchuk has maintained to Forum 18 that ROCA parish registration applicants were practising deception. In 2006 – when they were still united with ROCA members seeking rapprochement with the Moscow Patriarchate - Fr Ioann's parishioners in Brest city reported being pressured by local state officials and Moscow Patriarchate priests to withdraw their names from registration applications (see F18News 26 October 2006 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=862).

In the latest punishment for unsanctioned religious activity, Baptist pastor Yuri Kravchuk was fined 525,000 Belarusian Roubles (1,463 Norwegian Kroner, 175 Euros or 250 US Dollars) by Grodno's October District Court on 25 July 2008 for leading home worship without state approval, the Baptist Council of Churches reported on 5 August.

On 1 June a local police officer and religious affairs officials arrived as Kravchuk was beginning the Sunday morning service, took several photographs without the home owner's permission and drew up a record of an administrative offence, church members said (see 25 July 2008 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1163).

The Baptist Council of Churches, to which Kravchuk's community is affiliated, is a union of congregations that refuses on principle to seek state registration in any of the former Soviet republics.

Other Council of Churches leaders in Belarus have also been fined in recent years for leading unregistered worship. Vladimir Burshtyn, a Baptist who "organised choir singing and conducted conversations on religious topics" outside a public market in the town of Ushachi (Vitebsk [Vitsyebsk] Region) was fined on 5 June 2008. At 700,000 Belarusian Roubles (1,697 Norwegian Kroner, 211 Euros or 329 US Dollars) – more than two months' average wages - his was the highest fine so far imposed on a Baptist (see F18News 23 June 2008 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1147). (END)

For a personal commentary by Antoni Bokun, Pastor of a Pentecostal Church in Minsk, on Belarusian citizens' struggle to reclaim their history as a land of religious freedom, see F18News 22 May 2008 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1131.

For more background information see Forum 18's Belarus religious freedom survey at http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=888.

Full reports on freedom of thought, conscience and belief in Belarus can be found at http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?query=&religion=all&country=16.

A survey of the religious freedom decline in the eastern part of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) area is at http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=806.

A printer-friendly map of Belarus is available at http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/atlas/index.html?Parent=europe&Rootmap=belaru.

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Belarus: Lukashenko after the Georgian Invasion

STRATFOR -- Like other Former Soviet countries, Belarus is reassessing its relationship with Russia and the West after MOSCOW ’s conflict with Georgia. While not long ago Minsk may have entertained the idea of gradually opening up to the West, the Georgian example will drive it back forcefully into the Kremlin’s orbit. Read analysis by STRATFOR.

Belarus, the only ex-Soviet country to have survived the Union’s collapse without major political and economic renovation, is reassessing its relationship with Russia in the aftermath of MOSCOW ’s recent conflict with Georgia.

Though isolated, Belarus already has exceedingly strong ties with Russia. The Georgian example will persuade Belarus’ autocratic president, Aleksandr Lukashenko, that whole-hearted pandering to Russia is the only way he can maintain his position of power.

The geopolitical ties between Belarus and Russian are indissoluble. Belarus borders Russia, relies on it for military protection, and depends on Russian consumers for the success of its agricultural and manufacturing sectors. Without Russia’s military, economic and political backing, Lukashenko would fall — and Belarus might not even survive in its current form. Belarus and Russia were unified under the Soviet flag, and since the Soviet Union’s collapse they have spoken frequently of forming a “union state.”

Nevertheless, a rift exists between Belarus and Russia that is not immediately visible. Belarus’ attempts at full partnership with Russia are often rebuffed, and many Belarusians feel that they are viewed as ethnically inferior. In 2007, disputes broke out over energy prices between Belarus and Russian state-run energy giant Gazprom and Russian state-owned distributor Transneft. Lukashenko has leveled criticisms at Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. In short, though Belarus appears pro-Russian, it is ruled with an iron fist by Lukashenko, an opportunist loyal only to himself and constantly wary of his enemies both in the Kremlin and in the West.

Lukashenko’s ties to the Kremlin are complicated. He once hoped to become former Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s successor using his high-level contacts and his ability to unite both Russian and Belarusian nationalists and unrepentant communists. These groups won Belarus massive Soviet-style subsidies from Russia, notably keeping energy prices low. This enabled Minsk to weather the transition into the 21st century without complete economic overhaul. With Russian financial backing, Lukashenko remained in power and relatively popular, in great part preserving the old collectivist structures that Minsk inherited from its Soviet past.

But in 2000, Putin assumed the Russian presidency, upstaging Lukashenko, whose reputation subsequently diminished. Since then, the Kremlin has occasionally defended Belarus against Western political criticisms, but in turn it expects Minsk to serve as a regional pro-Russian mouthpiece. Lukashenko resents Putin for upstaging him, and keeps a close watch for signs the Kremlin might turn against him.

Lukashenko remains in this precarious situation, isolated and without allies other than Russia, but with desperate yearnings for more independence. Minsk could only reduce its dependence on MOSCOW by launching a series of far-reaching reforms, bringing itself more in alignment with Europe and the West. But aside from being rendered almost impossible by geopolitical realities, such a process would generate social instability and almost assuredly lead to Lukashenko’s overthrow. While Central European states like Poland and the Baltics would love to have Belarus join the Euro club, they want Lukashenko and the remnants of the Soviet-era government thrown out of power first, which obviously disposes the Belarusian president against courting their favor and support.

Lukashenko is thus in a tough position, and has therefore played the role of Kremlin cheerleader while furtively looking for a chance to form connections with those outsiders who do not seek to undermine his regime.

In June Lukashenko got a hint of a chance. Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, a high-ranking Vatican official, visited Minsk and spoke of improving relations. There was even talk of the pope visiting in the fall. Lukashenko smiled on the Vatican’s approaches, knowing full well that the Roman Catholic Church offers a broad avenue to the Western world. Minsk’s opening a line to the pope carries unmistakable resonances of change in former Soviet Union countries – after all, the church’s proliferation in Poland steadily subverted communist doctrine for decades.

Needless to say, it was not long until Russia’s Orthodox Church — and the Kremlin’s Federal Security Service (FSB), which has connections to the Patriarchate — discovered the potential Vatican inroads in its backyard. Of course, Russia has always been paranoid about its interests in Belarus, which it sees as a crucial buffer zone separating the Russian heartland from its Western rivals. The possibility of the Roman Catholic Church sowing seeds of dissent in this territory only heightened Kremlin paranoia.

On Aug. 12, the day Russian President Dmitri Medvedev ordered the Russian army to stop its advance into Georgia, Russian Ambassador to Belarus Alexander Surikov criticized Minsk for not lending more vocal support to MOSCOW throughout the conflict. Minsk has long served as propagandist and provocateur on the Russians’ behalf, but at this most crucial time it seemed to be holding its tongue. Surikov claimed that Russia was “perplexed” by the Belarusian silence on the issue, alluding to the countries’ special relationship (meaning Russian beneficence) and insisting that Belarus speak in open approval of MOSCOW ’s military operations in the Caucasus. A chastened Belarus responded by officially praising Russia’s actions, denouncing Georgian aggression and lending humanitarian aid to the separatist Georgian region of South Ossetia. Belarus’ loud cheer for MOSCOW , following its conspicuous silence, aptly characterizes the country’s ambivalent relationship with its domineering neighbor.

Like other former Soviet countries, Belarus is adjusting to the uncomfortable reality represented by MOSCOW ’s invasion of South Ossetia. The world now knows that the Russian army has not only the operational capability but also the willingness to deploy forces and secure neighboring regions from Western incursion. Lukashenko can no longer entertain the possibility of gradually opening up to the West, whether through the Vatican or by any other means. Rather, he will have to return to playing the role of MOSCOW ’s chief lackey. If he does not, he could suffer worse than harsh words from the Kremlin.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin plans to close the subtle gap between its interests and Belarus’ — and rein in Minsk and Lukashenko even tighter. MOSCOW needs a solid buffer to defend against the U.S. ballistic missile facilities to be installed in the Czech Republic and Poland. It may well put missiles of its own on Belarusian turf. The recent events in Georgia have shown that Russia is prepared to take action to secure its flanks, and Minsk understands the implications. Belarus has always been a Russian ally, but now the Kremlin will give no room for even a hint of a question about Minsk’s subservience.

Reprinted with permissions of STRATFOR.

Strategic Forecasting, Inc., more commonly known as Stratfor, is a private intelligence agency founded in 1996 in Austin, Texas.
George Friedman is the founder, chief intelligence officer, and CEO of the company.

Stratfor has published a daily intelligence briefing since its inception in 1996. Its rise to prominence occurred with the release of its Kosovo Crisis Center during the 1999 NATO air-strikes over Kosovo, which led to publicity in Time Magazine, Texas Monthly, and other major publications. Before the end of 1999, however, Stratfor had introduced a subscription service through which it offered the majority of its analyses.

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News Analysis: The Limits Of The Vatican-Minsk Friendship

Cardinal Bertone (left) and President Lukashenka (split screen)
(RFE/RL)

Last week, the Vatican's secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, paid a five-day visit to Belarus. The visit was remarkable for at least two reasons.

First, occasions on which high-ranking state officials travel to Minsk have become extremely rare. In fact, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has failed to host a single senior European official, or pay a formal visit to any country west of Belarus, since November 1996 -- when an openly manipulated and undemocratic constitutional referendum gave him single-handed control over his country.

jocular observation circulated in Minsk last week that Lukashenka had managed to secure the visit of the Vatican's second-in-command only because both states are ruled autocratically and, as a consequence, are outside the Council of Europe and its rights-guided parameters.

The visit was also extraordinary due to Lukashenka's decision, during his meeting with Cardinal Bertone, to extend an invitation to Pope Benedict XVI to visit Belarus at "any convenient time." The invitation might ultimately prove to be a mere symbolic gesture, but it is obvious that the Belarusian president was eager to exploit Bertone's visit to raise his own political profile by playing up his country's ties to the Vatican.

"Our dialogue has continued for far longer than the past two, three, or five years," Lukashenka was reported as having told Bertone. "We have cooperated with the Roman Catholic Church for many years, we have been in contact for many years; we had a dialogue with the previous pope, who respected and loved our country very much. He signaled this to me more than once."

The Belarusian side was well-prepared for the cardinal's visit. In addition to Lukashenka, Bertone met with Foreign Minister Syarhey Martynau; Leanid Hulyaka, the government commissioner for religious affairs; and Metropolitan Filaret, head of the Belarusian Exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Bertone was also invited to lead a Mass in a Minsk cathedral and consecrate a new Roman Catholic church, the first to be built in the capital since 1910. The cardinal also visited two provincial cities and met with Roman Catholic bishops. Moreover, several days before Bertone's trip, a Roman Catholic parish in Belarus's Vitsebsk Oblast unveiled a monument to Benedict -- reportedly the first monument to the current pontiff in the world.

In return, Bertone thanked the Belarusian government for "ensuring freedom of religion" in the country and said prospects were "good" for cooperation between the Holy See and Minsk.

Even more welcome to official ears, the cardinal condemned the use of sanctions in international relations. (U.S. economic sanctions are currently in place against a number of Belarusian state-run firms; both Washington and Brussels have extended a travel ban on more than 30 senior Belarusian officials.)

"Each nation is part of the international community," Bertone said at a news conference in Minsk. "I've said repeatedly that sanctions against Cuba, and against other countries -- including Belarus -- are inadmissible because people suffer from them."

Bertone also had kind words for Orthodox believers in Belarus, saying that relations between the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches in Belarus are "very positive."

Theory v. Practice

Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Bertone (left) with Orthodox Exarch Metropolitan Filaret in Minsk on June 19

In theory, Belarus's 2002 law "On Freedom of Worship and Religious Organizations" doesn't favor any denomination. Its preamble, however, makes distinctions between the five primary religions mentioned.

The law recognizes a "determining role of the Orthodox Church in the historical formation and development of the spiritual, cultural, and state traditions of the Belarusian people." The Roman Catholic Church is credited with a slightly less robust "spiritual, cultural, and historical role." Evangelical Lutheranism, Judaism, and Islam are jointly categorized as "inseparable from the common history of the people of Belarus."

In practice, the denominations not mentioned explicitly in the law -- which are commonly referred to as "nontraditional" -- face serious difficulties in registering their communities in Belarus or organizing houses of prayer and worship.

Relations between Lukashenka's Belarus and the Roman Catholic Church have not always been as rosy as both the president and Bertone might suggest. In the past few years, Belarusian authorities have expelled a number of Roman Catholic priests and nuns, primarily of Polish origin, when their visas expired.

The Roman Catholic Church experienced a renaissance in Belarus in the early 1990s. Belarus has been short of priests ever since, prompting Poland to offer a helping hand. But the Belarusian government is clearly wary of "Polish influence" among the country's Roman Catholics (who include some 400,000 ethnic Poles), and sees to it that priests and nuns lent to Belarus do not exceed their assigned terms.

On the whole, however, the Vatican can be satisfied with how the church is faring in Belarus. There are four Roman Catholic dioceses in the country now, compared to just one in 1989. There are also two seminaries in Belarus training native residents for the priesthood.

Estimates suggest there may be as many as 1.5 million Roman Catholics, and 400 local Catholic communities, among Belarus's 9.7 million residents. (Officially, 80 percent of Belarusians are Orthodox.) There are currently some 40 Roman Catholic churches under construction in the country.

And now comes an invitation for the pope to visit Belarus.

Thinking Ahead?

Pope Benedict is not as passionate a pilgrim as his predecessor, John Paul II. But if he fails to respond promptly to the invitation, the reasons may lie beyond any personal preference to stay at home.

The Belarusian Orthodox Exarchate is under the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church. Its head, Patriarch Aleksy II, regularly accuses the Roman Catholic Church of poaching Orthodox believers in Russia and other post-Soviet countries. Russia has never encouraged a papal visit to its territory; even if Benedict were to travel only to Minsk, it might be too close for the taste of the Moscow Patriarchate. (Moscow was clearly displeased by Pope John Paul's visit to Ukraine in 2001.)

The Belarusian Exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church appears acutely aware of Moscow's point of view. "There is no possibility for the pope to visit Belarus, and never will be," Father Alyaksey Shynkevich from the Belarusian Exarchate told journalists during Bertone's visit. "This is the common position of the Russian Orthodox Church. This is not the prerogative of our metropolitan. This is the prerogative of the Holy Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Aleksy and the synod of the Russian Orthodox Church."

So while a papal visit to Belarus seems unlikely, Lukashenka risks nothing in extending such an invitation. If the pontiff fails to accept, the Belarusian leader can always turn to the sour relations between the Vatican and Moscow for a ready explanation.

As for Cardinal Bertone and his words of praise in Minsk, one should remember that common wisdom dictates that while ordinary mortals plan their policies around the nearest election date, the Vatican plans its own policy with an eye to centuries to come. From such a perspective, is Lukashenka's undemocratic behavior actually worth mentioning?

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Catholic cardinal celebrates mass with thousands in Orthodox Minsk

Minsk - Cardinal Tarciso Bertone of the Catholic Church on Sunday celebrated a mass attended by thousands in the Belarusian capital of Minsk, a stronghold of the Russian Orthodox Church, the Interfax news agency reported. Attending the service were representatives from Western governments as well as many dignitaries from the Belarusian Orthodox Church.

The service by Bertone, the Secretary of State for the Vatican, ends his official visit to Belarus in what is seen as an attempt to build bridges between the West and the East.

The country's authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko, in a meeting with Bertone also invited Pope Benedict the XVI to Minsk.

The population of Belarus is approximately 80 per cent Russian Orthodox, and 15 per cent Catholic.

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Vatican state secretary notes new level of intensity in dialogue with Minsk

23 June 2008, 11:14

Minsk, June 23, Interfax - Vatican State Secretary Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone notes a new level of intensity in diplomatic relations between Belarus and the Vatican."

A beginning has been laid for positive diplomatic relations between Belarus and the Vatican," the cardinal said at a news conference in Minsk.

"Bilateral work has been launched to sign a basic agreement between the Holy See and Belarus," he also said. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has sent an invitation to Pope Benedict XVI to visit Belarus, he said, adding, "It is a very positive step."

The cardinal said that he had met with the country's top leaders and with the Foreign Ministry's senior officials. "It was a positive, fraternal dialogue. I brought a message from Pope Benedict XVI," he said.

Cardinal Bertone said he had had "a very good meeting in Minsk with the head of the Belarusian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Filaret." "The visit was very positive and I will speak about that in an interview with the leading Vatican mass media," he said.

Relations between the Belarusian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church in Belarus have been developing "very positively and aim to provide responses to the challenges of secularism," the cardinal said.

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Vatican state secretary delivers lecture at Belarusian State University about relationship between science and religion

The Vatican’s secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone on June 19 delivered a lecture to students and professors at Belarusian State University about the relationship between science and religion.

The cardinal greeted those present on behalf of Pope Benedict XVI and pointed out that the pontiff had had a long and distinguished academic career, and that he himself had served as university rector for two years. The need to resist challenges emerging on all continents makes dialogue between faith and reason and between culture and faith all the more important, Msgr. Bertone said.

Telling modern people about God is a subject that concerns everyone who is looking for meaning, he noted. People in “this wonderful country,” who have survived many difficulties and hardships to enter a new historical period, cannot but start asking questions about the meaning of life, which to a great extent overlap with the subject of God, the cardinal said.

The Vatican’s second-in-command arrived in Belarus on June 18 on a five-day official visit. He was scheduled to meet with Alyaksandr Lukashenka and Leanid Hulyaka, the government’s commissioner on religious and ethnic affairs, lead a mass in the Cathedral Church of the Most Holy Virgin Mary in Minsk, and visit Minsk’s Serabranka neighborhood to consecrate the cornerstone of the St. John the Baptist Church, which will be the first Catholic church to be built in the city since 1910.

The cardinal was also expected to visit Hrodna and Pinsk, meet with members of the Conference of Catholic Bishops in Belarus and believers at Minsk’s St. Simon and St. Helena Church, and lay flowers at the World War II obelisk on Minsk’s Victory Square. //BelaPAN

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Religious, political dimensions to Cardinal Bertone's visit in Belarus

Minsk, Jun. 20, 2008 (CWNews.com) - Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone (bio - news) told public officials in Belarus that he was visiting the country in part "to express my gratitude for the way freedom of religion is being upheld in Belarus."

The Vatican Secretary of State, who began his 5-day visit to Belarus in the capital city of Minsk, acknowledged that his trip had an important political component as well. Cardinal Bertone-- who is scheduled to meet with President Aleksander Lukashenko-- said that he would "discuss bilateral cooperation and Belarus's role and place in the international community."

A former Soviet state that retains close ties to Russia, Belarus has been politically isolated from its European neighbors. While the government strongly favors the local Orthodox Church, which is affiliated with the Moscow patriarchate, the Catholics who make up the largest religious minority have generally been able to practice their faith without serious restrictions.

Cardinal Bertone met with Orthodox leaders during his first day n Minks, and said that the talks were important to strengthen "an atmosphere of cooperation between two faiths."

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Cardinal Bertone Stresses Ecumenism in Belarus

Says Good Relations With Orthodox Key to Resolving Conflicts

MINSK, Belarus, JUNE 20, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI's secretary of state says ecumenism is key to resolving conflicts in Belarus as the Church there recovers from years of Soviet rule.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone arrived in Belarus on Wednesday for a trip that lasts through the weekend. Today he met with President Aleksandr Lukashenko.

The president welcomed the Holy See official, highlighting in his address that Belarus is respectful of the right to religious freedom. Cardinal Bertone thanked him for his words and offered the Church's support for Belarus in its role as a bridge between East and West.

He also highlighted the importance of good relations between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches.

That was the same message Cardinal Bertone gave to the faithful of the nation.

Vatican Radio reported that the cardinal acknowledged the difficulties faced by Belarus' four Catholic bishops. In the wake of Communism, the Church here suffers from having too few priests and other ministers.

But the cardinal also stressed the importance of nourishing a good relationship with the Orthodox Church, which implies abandoning old prejudices.

"Ecumenical dialogue is the most appropriate instrument to establish a fraternal exchange geared to resolving differences in a spirit of justice, charity and forgiveness," he said.

The cardinal noted the various struggles facing the Church in Belarus, particularly regarding properties that were appropriated by the Communists. This issue also makes ecumenical relations stickier, since some of the properties were given to the Orthodox.

On Thursday afternoon, Cardinal Bertone met with the country's Greek-Catholic community, which, like the Orthodox, maintains the Eastern liturgy, but is in communion with Rome. This on occasion has meant persecution for the Greek-Catholic community.

"The unity of the different rites is a great richness for the Catholic Church," the cardinal told them. "Ecclesial communion is a treasure that we must preserve zealously, defending it from any risk or danger."

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Vatican envoy praises Belarus for fostering religious tolerance

Belarussian Foreign Minister Sergei Martynov (left) shakes hands with Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone in Minsk, yesterday. (REUTERS)

Web posted at: 6/20/2008 1:11:40

Source ::: Reuters

MINSK • A senior Vatican envoy praised good relations between different faiths in Belarus yesterday at the start of a visit which could help smooth the ex-Soviet state's turbulent relations with the West.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican Secretary of State, is to meet President Alexander Lukashenko and other officials during a five-day stay in the country accused in the West of crushing freedom of speech and assembly. He is the first senior Vatican official to visit the country lying between Russia and three European Union members, where the Orthodox Church dominates, but Roman Catholics account for about 14 percent of 10 million residents.

Speaking after a meeting with the head of Belarus's Orthodox church, Bertone said his talks had proved "positive in terms of a mutual exchange. This visit underscores an atmosphere of cooperation between two faiths."

He later told the head of the State Committee on Religious Affairs: "I have come to express my gratitude for the way freedom of religion is being upheld in Belarus."

Lukashenko, barred from the United States and European Union, has sought in the past year to improve ties with the West by freeing several detainees, but new rows have erupted over calls for the release of a jailed opposition leader. Relations remain particularly strained with Washington. But in terms of religion, Belarus is generally marked by tolerance.

Authorities have signed an accord on ties with the Orthodox church, but Catholic holidays are officially observed and the churches interact with little of the suspicion that bedevils ties in neighbouring Russia.

"The cardinal could be a sort of intermediary between Europe and Belarus. And an influential intermediary at that," said Yaroslav Romanchuk, head of the Mises Institute in Minsk.

"This is a way for authorities to act in Europe through the Vatican. If Lukashenko can show that Belarus respects religious rights, that would be a step towards breaking out of isolation." Lukashenko describes himself as an "Orthodox atheist" and Catholics hope they, too, will one day also be able to sign an agreement on ties with authorities.

On his arrival in Minsk on Wednesday evening, Bertone made clear his visit had a big political dimension.

"The aim of my stay is to hold meetings with Belarussian officials to discuss bilateral cooperation and Belarus's role and place in the international community," he said.

In March, thousands packed Belarus's largest cathedral to attend a mass conducted in Rome by Pope Benedict and broadcast on large screens.

Benedict's predecessor, John Paul, visited several ex-Soviet states, but was unable to fulfil his dream of visiting Russia-or Belarus. Belarus's top Catholic cleric earlier this year said a papal visit was not yet on the agenda.

Relations between Rome and the 220-million Orthodox Church, divided since the Great Schism of 1054, grew more tense under John Paul.

Russian Orthodox patriarch Alexiy II rejects a papal visit on grounds that Catholics have tried to poach congregations and claim property in ex-Soviet states.

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BELARUS: "We are reclaiming our history as a land of religious freedom"

This article was published by F18News on: 22 May 2008


By Antoni Bokun, Pastor of John the Baptist Pentecostal Church in Minsk, Belarus

Concern is growing across Europe about the deterioration of freedom of conscience in Belarus. Few are aware, however, that Belarus was once a haven of religious freedom for people fleeing persecution in Western Europe. In this personal commentary for Forum 18 News Service http://www.forum18.org, Antoni Bokun, pastor of Minsk's John the Baptist Pentecostal Church, describes how Belarusians' historical experience has taught them that "religious freedom elevates our nation, whereas religious un-freedom leads to the darkest and most tragic consequences." In 1573 - almost 400 years before the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - Belarusians adopted one of Europe's first legal declarations upholding religious freedom for all, when many other European states executed people for their faith. Pastor Antoni maintains that it is this deep-rooted experience which lies behind today's campaign against religious freedom restrictions. "Inspired by our long history of freedom of conscience, Belarusians continue to work and hope for the day that our country will reclaim its heritage as a land of religious freedom." In 2007 Pastor Bokun spent three days in prison and was heavily fined for leading worship services.

Belarus has been renowned freedom of conscience for centuries. This is why religious freedom – which the current state authorities have been trying to restrict for the past decade – remains a key concern for Belarusian citizens. In the largest campaign of its kind since current President Aleksandr Lukashenko came to power in 1994, between April 2007 and February 2008 over 50,000 people signed a petition asking the Constitutional Court and other state organs to change the restrictive 2002 Religion Law. Moreover, according to those who collected signatures, every second person approached agreed to support the appeal. Petitioners signed even though the state arrested campaign activists and confiscated campaign material.

Campaigners against the Religion Law affirm that the rights to life, free speech and freedom of belief are inalienable, "because we have them from birth, they are given to us by God and not the government. Since the government does not give us these rights, they do not have the right to take them away." The Law's opponents also stress that they are defending the rights of all Belarusian citizens, as it "violates the rights of all people, even atheists."

Even though it is more than five years since the Law came into force in 2002, Belarusian Christians have not stopped seeking its review. When the Law was under consideration, there were protest demonstrations and numerous appeals against its adoption due to the numerous problems it was bound to create in the religious sphere. Then, once the Law was adopted, the Baptist Union and the Full Gospel Association did not re-register until the very last moment, insisting upon amendments to some of its more odious provisions. While this protest did not succeed, it at least became possible in practice to re-register a number of churches unable to manage the minimum 20 founders. The recent petition marks a new stage in the battle to change the Law.

In multi-confessional Belarus - where Christmas and Easter are officially celebrated twice, according to both Eastern and Western Christian calendars – moves to restrict religious freedom and allot the Orthodox Church the de facto status of state church are inevitably causing resentment. Most people find such a policy perplexing, as they are accustomed to believing that they belong to a multi-confessional nation.

The historical experience of Belarus also shows that religious freedom elevates our nation, whereas religious un-freedom leads to the darkest and most tragic consequences.

The advent of Christianity in Belarus was not accompanied by violence. Christian churches following Eastern and Western rites co-existed peacefully on Belarusian soil from the tenth century onwards. A policy of religious freedom became the basis of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania – the state in which Belarusian national identity was forged.

In the fifteenth century there was an attempt to make Catholicism the state religion by barring non-Catholics from senior state positions. In 1436 an Inquisition was introduced against the considerable number of Christians in the Grand Duchy who had accepted the Reformation ideas of Jan Hus. These actions caused conflict and the departure of some Belarusian Orthodox nobles for the state of Muscovy.

The sixteenth century has been called Belarus' Golden Age, not just thanks to progress in the cultural and economic spheres, but also due to religious freedom. Attempts to stop the Protestant faith from spreading ended in fiasco. In 1563 the nobility, headed by the Grand Duchy's leading Protestant, Mikalai Radzivil the Black, succeeded in obtaining a decree under which, "not only subjects of the Roman Church should be elected to all positions and the government, but to the same degree men of noble class, of the Christian faith, each according to his merits." Not long afterwards the overwhelming majority of seats in the Grand Duchy's Senate were occupied by Protestant Christians.

The country became renowned across Europe as "a place of shelter for heretics" where anyone could freely profess their faith, even those who denied mainstream Christian doctrines. Faced with the possibility of being thrown into jail or burnt at the stake for dissent from the prevailing faith in their homelands, French, Italians, Czechs and others began to move to the Grand Duchy. In 1557, for example, Duchess Catherine Willoughby of Suffolk and her husband Richard Bertie came to seek asylum in the Grand Duchy due to their Protestant beliefs, by invitation of Mikalai Radzivil the Black.

In January 1573 the Belarusian and Polish nobilities ratified the declaration of the Confederation of Warsaw, which read: "And since there is no small variation in the Christian faith in our republic, warning that no form of hostility should arise between people for this reason, which we see is clearly taking place in other states, we pledge to ourselves, for ourselves and our descendants for all time to preserve peace between us and not, on account of differences in faith, to shed blood in the churches or to deprive anyone of property or social standing, or to subject anyone to arrest or banishment, or to assist any authorities or government in such actions."

The 1588 Statute of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania reiterated the principle of religious freedom. For Europe, enflamed by religious wars, the Confederation of Warsaw became a model of how to resolve issues of freedom of conscience. Writing in his diary at the beginning of the seventeenth century, Belarusian Calvinist nobleman Fyodor Yevlashovsky recalled that: "In Vilnius I sat at the table of [Catholic canon] Fr Bartholomew Nedvitsky, together with his Italian servants. When they found out that I was an evangelical Christian, they were astounded at how it was that a canon priest dared invite me to dinner. And when I told them that no hatred arises between us because of that, and we get along as good friends, the Italians praised this, saying that God lives here, and began to lament the laws in their own land – or rather lawlessness. At that time difference in faith was not a reason for any kind of difference in friendship, and so that age seems to me a golden one, because now untruth exists between people of the same faith, to say nothing about those of different faiths, and you can forget about charity or sincerity."

Yevlashovsky's complaints about the seventeenth century are not without foundation. The accession of Sigismund Vasa to the throne marked the end of religious freedom in the Grand Duchy. Aiming to destroy the Reformation there, the king doggedly pursued all means of ridding the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth of everything non-Catholic.

King Sigismund overtly flouted the provisions of the Confederation of Warsaw and restricted the rights of those who did not share the prevailing faith. Mass emigration of non-Catholics resulted, including Orthodox believers who refused to become Eastern-rite Catholics under the 1596 Union of Brest. The lack of religious freedom led to other states benefiting from the migrants' talents and labour. Belarusian émigrés such as Simeon of Polotsk and Yan Belobotsky brought Russia into closer contact with western civilisation. Religious persecution forced Ilya Kopiyevich, a student of the Calvinist high school in Slutsk, to flee to the Dutch Republic – another state famed for its religious freedom – where he devised a simplified Cyrillic orthography.

In 1796 the Russian Empire occupied the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and a new era of un-freedom began. Whereas the Catholics had held the privileged position previously, the state now began to propagate Orthodoxy in every possible way. In 1839 the Eastern-rite Catholics, who by this time accounted for more than 50 per cent of the Belarusian population, were forcefully incorporated into the Russian Orthodox Church.

General-Governor Muravyov of Vilnius, nicknamed 'hangman' during his bloody suppression of the January Uprising of 1863, declared: "the Russian Church, the Russian bureaucrat and the Russian school will do what the Russian bayonet cannot." Soon, identical Orthodox churches began to be built throughout the country and Catholic churches were turned over to the Orthodox Church. Today's Orthodox Cathedral of the Holy Spirit in Minsk, for example, is a former Bernardine Cistercian Catholic church. One law stated that "the prevailing Orthodox Church alone has the right to win over followers from other Christian confessions and faiths to accept its teachings on faith." "Seducing" people from Orthodoxy to another faith, on the other hand, was punishable by up to three years in prison.

After the fall of the Russian Empire, freedom of conscience could only be realised outside the Soviet Union - including western Belarus, which was then part of Poland. Within the Soviet Union, militant atheism led to the destruction of almost every church on the territory of eastern Belarus by 1939. The difference between the two halves of our country, in separate states for just 20 years, can still be felt to this day. The Holocaust devastated the historic Jewish population of our country, and aspects of their religious freedom are limited by the current state authorities.

Despite being formally guaranteed by the Soviet Constitution, there could be no talk of freedom of conscience under communism. Similar guarantees in the 1994 Constitution are ignored today - but the present government is proving as unsuccessful as the Communist Party was in removing freedom of conscience from the hearts of Belarusians.

The current policy of the Belarusian government, sadly, is to create a kind of mixture of the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire. In this the authorities give the appearance but not the reality of granting privileges to the Orthodox Church, while restricting religious freedom for all - including Orthodox Christians. These efforts are being met with opposition, however, particularly from Protestant churches.

The most repressive religious law in Europe continues to be in force in our nation. However, inspired by our long history of freedom of conscience, attempts to get the Law overturned carry on. Belarusians continue to work and hope for the day that our country will reclaim its heritage as a land of religious freedom. (END)

- Antoni Bokun contributed this commentary to Forum 18 News Service http://www.forum18.org. Commentaries are personal views and do not necessarily represent the views of F18News or Forum 18.

PDF and printer-friendly views of this article can be accessed from http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1131. It may freely be reproduced, redistributed or quoted from, with due acknowledgement to Forum 18 http://www.forum18.org.

Pastor Bokun's heavy fine and imprisonment for three days in 2007, for leading worship, was reported in F18News 5 June 2007 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=969.

One aspect of Belarusians' determination to exercise their right to religious freedom by sharing their beliefs in public – against the Religion Law - is documented by F18News 15 November 2006 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=842.

The emergence of faith-based political opposition in Belarus is described in F18News 29 November 2006 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=880.

For more background information see Forum 18's Belarus religious freedom survey at http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=888.

Full reports on freedom of thought, conscience and belief in Belarus can be found at http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?query=&religion=all&country=16.

A survey of the religious freedom decline in the eastern part of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) area is at http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=806.

A printer-friendly map of Belarus is available at http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/atlas/index.html?Parent=europe&Rootmap=belaru.

Antoni Bokun, Pastor of John the Baptist Pentecostal Church in Minsk, Belarus, contributed this comment to Forum 18 News Service. Commentaries are personal views and do not necessarily represent the views of F18News or Forum 18.

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BELARUS: KGB pressure Orthodox not to venerate Soviet-era martyrs

This article was published by F18News on: 12 May 2008


By Geraldine Fagan, Forum 18 News Service
http://www.forum18.org/

Belarus discourages the commemoration of Orthodox Christians killed for their faith by the Soviet Union, Forum 18 News Service has found. Today's KGB secret police have sought to have icons of the New Martyrs, as they are known by the Orthodox Church, removed from Grodno Cathedral. Russian Orthodox Deacon Andrei Kurayev told Forum 18 that "Some comrades from the local KGB asked local clergy why they were inciting the people in such a way." While there was no official order to remove the icons – "it was on the level of a chat" - Kurayev reported that Bishop Artemi (Kishchenko) of Grodno and Volkovysk refused to take them down. "He told the KGB that he couldn't rewrite history." KGB officers also often monitor visitors to Kuropaty, where New Martyrs are probably among mass graves of Stalinist repression victims, a local Orthodox source told Forum 18. The act of going there – even to light candles - is "fraught with tension" with the current Belarusian regime, according to the source. An Orthodox chapel planned for the site has never been built.

A generation after the Soviet Union's demise, Belarusian state representatives continue to discourage commemoration of Orthodox Christians killed for their faith by the Soviet regime, Forum 18 News Service has found. The KGB secret police have sought to have icons of the New Martyrs, as they are known by the Orthodox Church, removed from at least one cathedral. Belarusian Orthodox Church representatives appear to be nervous about publicly acknowledging New Martyrs believed to be among the many victims of the Stalin-era secret police at the mass killing grounds of Kuropaty (Kurapaty) on the northern edge of the capital Minsk.

The Moscow-based St Tikhon Orthodox University estimates that approximately 90,000 Orthodox were killed for their faith by the Soviet state. Over 1,000 New Martyrs were formally canonised by the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) in August 2000.

In the western city of Grodno [Hrodna], however, the KGB have advised local Orthodox clergy to remove New Martyr icons depicting Red Army executioners with rifles from the city's cathedral, leading Russian Orthodox missionary Deacon Andrei Kurayev told Forum 18 on 5 May. Visiting Grodno in late 2006, Kurayev learnt that, "Some comrades from the local KGB asked local clergy why they were inciting the people in such a way." While there was no official order to remove the icons from the Cathedral of the Protection of the Holy Veil – "it was on the level of a chat" - Kurayev also reported that Bishop Artemi (Kishchenko) of Grodno and Volkovysk refused to take them down. "He told the KGB that he couldn't rewrite history."

A spokesperson at Grodno's KGB Department refused to provide information to Forum 18 by telephone on 8 May.

The ten icons in Grodno cathedral depict one-time bishops in Belarus killed by the Soviet regime elsewhere before the Second World War. Grodno was at this time in Poland.

"There is a certain circle of people who don't like these icons," dean of Grodno Fr Aleksandr Veliseichik would only comment on 5 May. "Similar to Christ in the Gospel," he told Forum 18, "let those who can read, understand."

Fr Aleksandr did point out to Forum 18 that icons may be removed only if they are not Orthodox, "but these were painted entirely according to church canons." He said some of the ten icons were copied from one in Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour painted for the August 2000 canonisation of the New Martyrs and blessed by Patriarch Aleksi II (http://days.pravoslavie.ru/Images/im609.htm).

Others – such as that of St Pavlin, Bishop of Mogilev (1879-1937) – are new depictions produced at St Elizabeth Women's Monastery outside Minsk (http://orthos.org/grodno/gev/june2006/images/5_st_pavl_b.jpg).

Aleksandr Shursky, editor of Grodno's Orthodox diocesan newspaper, stated to Forum 18 only that there was "no official appeal from KGB representatives" on 22 April. He acknowledged, however, that "many Party workers of the old formation could not possibly like such icons.

"The Belarusian KGB – which has not changed its name since Soviet times - has made no attempt to distance itself from its Soviet past. It proudly traces its history back to the first Soviet secret police, the Cheka, which was founded by Felix Dzerzhinsky. In the 1920s "Chekists stood shoulder to shoulder with the entire Belarusian people in resolving the most difficult and pressing economic and social tasks before them," its official website maintains, before claiming that the organisation was actually a victim of Stalin's purges in the 1930s: "23,000 Chekists were repressed - the very best professionals, moreover, Dzerzhinsky's comrades, outstanding people with rich and sensitive souls, selflessly serving the Motherland and fighting for a bright future for their country."

KGB officers also often monitor visitors to Kuropaty, a wooded area on the northern outskirts of Minsk, a local Orthodox source told Forum 18 on 5 May. Possibly 100,000 victims of Stalin's purges are thought to have been shot and buried at Kuropaty in 1937-41, but no archaeological research has been conducted at the site since the 1990s. The act of going there – even to light candles - is "fraught with tension" with the current regime, according to the source.

During the 1920s-30s over 20 clergy - including 3 bishops - were shot in Minsk for their faith, states research by local church historian Fr Feodor Krivonos cited in a 2001 Minsk Orthodox parish directory. Contacted by Forum 18 on 8 May, Fr Feodor described the question of whether Kuropaty could be considered a New Martyr burial site as "very difficult". Other than to confirm that Belarusian New Martyrs were killed in Belarus as well as Russia, he preferred not to discuss the subject by telephone.

Andrei Petrashkevich, Minsk Orthodox diocesan press secretary, told Forum 18 on 8 May that, "We have no information on whether there are New Martyrs canonised by the Church at Kuropaty.

"Local Orthodox parishioner Anatoli Kuznetsov believes Kuropaty to be a New Martyr burial site. Icons painted on a number of rocks there include five Belarusian priests martyred in Minsk in 1937-8, he told Forum 18 on 8 May. "And Kuropaty is where people were shot."

Several icon rocks feature in footage of restoration work at Kuropaty following vandalism, available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MunN2dCqoN0.

Visiting Minsk in June 2001, Patriarch Aleksi gave his blessing for the nearby Orthodox parish of the Resurrection to build a chapel at Kuropaty. A 2001 directory of Minsk Orthodox churches describes the parish's affiliate chapel of Our Saviour Not Made by Human Hands as "being built at the mass burial site of repression victims (Kuropaty)."

No Orthodox chapel has been built to date, however. An open-air "chapel" area contains the icon rocks and two high crosses erected by Anatoli Kuznetsov in February 2006 and May 2007, he told Forum 18. As Resurrection Orthodox parish's custodian of the site, Kuznetsov has visited Kuropaty daily for nearly five years.

Plans for a chapel as blessed by the patriarch were altered because Metropolitan Filaret (Vakhromeyev) of Minsk and Slutsk, who heads the Belarusian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate), gave a further blessing for it to be built instead at Resurrection Church - approximately 1km (half a mile) away in Minsk city - Kuznetsov told Forum 18. "There was no explanation why – only that it should be moved."

The initiative of Resurrection parish, the Kuropaty chapel plans have not been realised because parishioners have been concentrating on finishing their own church building, the Orthodox Church's press secretary Petrashkevich told Forum 18. "The question remains open – although it hasn't been discussed recently," he remarked. "That's all I can say."

The situation surrounding Kuropaty is in sharp contrast to that at another site of mass executions at Butovo on the outskirts of Moscow. Of at least 20,000 Soviet repression victims shot and buried there, almost 1,000 have so far been verified as martyrs by the Russian Orthodox Church. Visiting the site in October 2007, then President Vladimir Putin attended a memorial service led by Patriarch Aleksi at a church dedicated to the Butovo New Martyrs and Confessors. Hundreds of clergy attend the annual commemoration of their feast day.

To Forum 18's knowledge, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko has never mentioned Kuropaty publicly.

The 2001 Minsk Orthodox parish directory also states that Resurrection Church holds services alongside Kuropaty at 2pm on particular days in the Orthodox calendar set aside for prayer for the dead. On one of these, Radonitsa (the ninth day after Easter), the memorial service this year was held at Resurrection Church itself, however, Forum 18 was told by a female parishioner on 6 May. Kuropaty custodian Kuznetsov told Forum 18 that services are not held at the site because "the question hasn't arisen."

Orthodox memorial services are usually held in church buildings, Belarusian Orthodox Church press secretary Petrashkevich maintained to Forum 18. While acknowledging that Radonitsa services are normally held at cemeteries or burial sites, "I have no information as to whether they are held at Kuropaty," he added.

Separated from the Moscow Patriarchate and outside the Soviet Union, the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (ROCA) was free to canonise the New Martyrs in November 1981. The ROCA took the Moscow Patriarchate's continued failure to venerate the New Martyrs as a sign of compliance with Soviet ideology. It formed one of the main obstacles to reconciliation, finally overcome in a formal Act of Canonical Communion signed in Moscow on 17 May 2007.

The influence of Soviet-style militant atheism also remains strong among state officials in Belarus (see F18News 18 November 2003 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=186).

Although President Lukashenko publicly stresses the role of Orthodoxy, Forum 18 has found little evidence of state support for the Belarusian Orthodox Church (see F18News 10 August 2006 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=826). The Church's leadership publicly supported the harsh 2002 Religion Law, under which home worship by its own adherents has been targeted by the Belarusian state for the first time since the Soviet period (see F18News 6 June 2007 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=971).

Even during the recent reconciliation process between the churches, Belarusian Orthodox Church representatives have sought to restrict worship by local ROCA parishioners (see most recently F18News 22 October 2006 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=862). (END)

For more background information see Forum 18's Belarus religious freedom survey at http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=888.

Full reports on freedom of thought, conscience and belief in Belarus can be found at http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?query=&religion=all&country=16.

A survey of the religious freedom decline in the eastern part of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) area is at http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=806.

A printer-friendly map of Belarus is available at http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/atlas/index.html?Parent=europe&Rootmap=belaru.

SOURCE:

Papal mass could lead to Belarus visit - archbishop

Posted: Friday, February 29, 2008, 10:49 (GMT)

A weekend papal mass to be broadcast in Minsk's Catholic cathedral could help improve Belarus's standing in the world and eventually lead to a visit by Pope Benedict, the country's top Catholic cleric said.

Saturday's mass, organised with the help of state television, is the first such event in ex-Soviet Belarus, where Catholics make up about 14 per cent of its 10 million people. Belarus is accused by Western countries of infringing human rights and its president, Alexander Lukashenko, is barred from the United States and the European Union. But religious strife is rare and both Catholic and Orthodox holidays are officially observed.

"This will be the first such broadcast in Minsk and we have encountered no obstacles from authorities in organising it," Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, Archbishop of Minsk-Mogilyov, said in an interview late on Tuesday.

"It is important for the Catholic Church, for young Catholics, to have the opportunity to pray together with the Pope. And I believe it is also important for Belarus itself, to improve Belarus's standing in the world."

Kondrusiewicz, previously the senior Catholic cleric in neighbouring Russia, said the late Pope John Paul had visited many ex-Soviet states and had long wanted to come to Belarus.

"We would love to have the Pope come to Belarus. This would be a landmark event. But for the moment, this is not on the agenda," he said.

PAPAL VISIT

Relations between Rome and the 220 million-strong Orthodox Church, divided since the Great Schism of 1054, became more tense under John Paul, who was unable to visit Russia, the long-held dream of his papacy.

Russian Orthodox patriarch Alexiy II had rejected a visit by Pope John Paul on the grounds that Catholics had tried to poach congregations and claim property in former Soviet republics, particularly Ukraine.

Kodrusiewicz said he hoped the Catholic Church would be able to sign an agreement with Belarussian authorities guaranteeing its rights as a recognised religion akin to one already setting down the leading role for Belarus's Orthodox Church.

"We would be very pleased to sign such an agreement and this ought to happen. Catholics make up the second largest confession in Belarus," he said, adding that in future the Church hoped no longer to have to rely on foreign clergy in parishes.

Authorities have expressed disquiet that half the 398 Catholic clergy in Belarus come from outside the country.

Most are from neighbouring Poland, which has uneasy ties with Minsk over a series of diplomatic and spying rows and allegations that Belarus mistreats its 400,000-strong Polish minority.

But he said Catholics would never engage in proselytising or take actions that would antagonise Orthodox believers.

"There is no logic in this. The Catholic Church sees the Orthodox Church as a sister church," he said.

"There are so many mixed marriages and that can only be beneficial. Benedict has called mixed marriages a laboratory for Christian unity so Belarus can be a nationwide laboratory."

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Freedom Remains Elusive for Journalist in Belarus Jailed For Printing Islamic Cartoons

MINSK, Belarus — Freedom could be years away for Aleksandr Sdvizhkov, the Belarusian journalist sentenced to three years of hard labor for republishing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that sparked mass demonstrations and anti-Western violence across the Muslim world.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Sdvizhkov is currently being held with no means of communication at the Belarusian Interior Ministry’s transfer prison in Minsk, said Olexei Korol, co-founder of Zgoda (Consensus) newspaper, which published the cartoons.

“No one is allowed to visit him,” Korol said.

Belarusian strongman President Aleksandr Lukashenko shut down Zgoda in March 2006 after Sdvizhkov decided to re-print the cartoons that portrayed the founder of Islam, including one showing the prophet, with a bomb in his turban.

The 12 cartoons first appeared in the Danish Jyllands-Posten newspaper in 2005 and outraged Muslims who saw them as blasphemous. Last week Danish media republished the controversial images to show solidarity with the cartoonist, a day after police revealed an alleged plot to kill him. Islamic tradition prohibits images of Muhammad and other prophets.

In January a Minsk court sentenced Sdvizhkov to three years of hard labor in a penal colony for his decision to reprint the cartoons. No one knows when the Belarusian Supreme Court will get around to hearing Sdvizhkov’s appeal.

Vitaly Taras, a member of the Union of Belarusian Writers, said in an interview that Sdvizhkov's punishment was excessive. "The case demonstrates to the whole world that European values, including the freedom of speech, have little value in Belarus," Taras said.

The population of Belarus, formerly a Soviet republic, is overwhelmingly Orthodox Christian; only about 3 percent of the 9 million residents are Muslim. Lukashenko's oppressive, Soviet-style government has a history of quashing independent media, and it has close ties to Iran.

"The authorities suddenly became very worried about the feelings of Belarusian Muslims," said Aleksandr Klaskovsky, a Minsk-based independent political analyst with Belarusian News. "Prior to the scandal, Belarusian authorities told everyone who would listen that Belarus was a Slavic, Russian Orthodox country, ignoring the country's true multicultural and religious reality."

Taras said the government's crackdown on Zgoda sent a message to Muslims worldwide: "The Sdvizhkov case in Belarus can only please extremists from Hamas, and other Muslim radicals, who will be happy our authorities turned out to be on their side."

Lukashenko, the nation's president, called the publication of the cartoons "a provocation against the state," and in 2006 the Belarusian General Prosecutor’s Office opened a criminal investigation into the paper's decision to re-publish the cartoons.

Sdvizhkov, who is a member of the Russian Orthodox Church, fled the country and wound up in a Russian Monastery while in exile and spent his time writing an erotic novel.

“It’s a terrific piece of work,” said Aleksandr Abramovich, Sdvizhkov’s lifelong friend and contributing editor to the Borisov News. He reviewed the manuscript when Sdvizhkov made a secret trip in July 2007 to his hometown of Borisov, a small city 31 miles northeast of Minsk.

On Nov. 18, 2007, Belarusian Secret Service agents arrested Sdvizhkov in Borisov on charges of inciting religious hatred. The 49-year-old journalist had re-entered the country and traveled there to mark the 10th anniversary of his father’s death.

“His neighbors turned him in,” said Abramovich.

According to his close friends and colleagues, he's now getting little support from groups willing to work for his release.

The Belarusian Association of Journalists, a non-governmental organization founded in 1995 to defend the rights of Belarusian journalists, discussed how best to assist their colleague.

The group's deputy director, Andrey Bastunets said they had asked lawyer Maya Aleksandrovna to help Sdvizhkov appeal his sentence.

Aleksandrovna said she last met with Sdvizhkov on Jan. 29 to help prepare his appeal.

“I haven’t seen him since,” Aleksandrovna said, adding that prison authorities would allow her to see Sdvizhkov in person only after she was formally contracted to represent him. “That hasn’t happened yet,” she said.

Appeals to the government from the Moscow-based Russian Orthodox Church to intercede on Sdvizhkov's behalf have also been ignored.

A clerk at the Belarusian Supreme Court said that no date has been set to hear Sdvizhkov’s appeal.

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BELARUS: How serious is official call to phase out foreign clergy?

The Catholic Church is unsure about the implications of remarks by Belarusian Vice-premier Aleksandr Kosinets about foreign clergy. With about 190 foreign priests plus more than 100 nuns, the Catholic Church is by far the religious community in Belarus which relies most heavily on foreign clergy. Kosinets told a 19 September round table with Belarus' religious leaders that the Catholic Church should end the use of foreign clergy over the next few years. However, Forum 18 News Service has been unable to clarify whether this is a recommendation or an order. "The Vice-premier's words arouse questions and perplexities rather than outright concern," a senior Catholic told Forum 18. Religious affairs official Aleksandr Kalinov, who was also present at the round table, refused to tell Forum 18 if action will be taken if the Catholic Church does not end the use of foreign priests, but insisted: "No-one is preparing to expel them." The Catholic Church – like the Orthodox Church – also has a number of foreign-born bishops, while other religious communities – including Jews – have foreign religious leaders.

Amid a lack of clarity over whether Vice-premier Aleksandr Kosinets was suggesting or requiring that all foreign religious leaders should leave Belarus within five or seven years...READ THE REST HERE:



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Belarus "Threatens" Expulsion Of Foreign Priests

Foreign priests face possible expulsion under Belarus' President Alexander Lukashenko. Via Wikipedia

Wednesday, 26 September 2007
By BosNewsLife News Center in Budapest

BUDAPESY/MINSK (BosNewsLife)-- The government of Belarus has threatened to expel all foreign priests from the former Soviet republic, a Protestant news agency reported Wednesday, September 26.

Belarus Prime Minister Aleksandr Kosinets announced that "all foreign Roman Catholic priests may be required to leave the country," reported the well-informed Adventist Press Service (APD). Most of the 350 Catholic priests serving in Belarus were born abroad.

The threatened ban on foreign priests, which would take effect over a period of months, comes as the Russian news agency Interfax reported that the Vatican and the government of Belarus are negotiating a 'concordat', an agreement between the secular and religious power, to establish "the legal rights of the Catholic Church" in this mostly Orthodox country.

For the last twelve years, the number of Roman Catholic parishes in Belarus increased four times, APD said.

HUNDERDS OF PARISHES

There are reportedly 432 parishes in the country, united in four dioceses. According to polls, some 17% of the believers in Belarus claim to be Catholics. Concordats generally give the Roman Catholic Church certain legal and financial privileges – such as state subsidies - forever, unless the Church agrees to relinquish them.

"I believe the Vatican will be interested in concluding an agreement with the Republic of Belarus," added the head of the Commission for Human Rights, Ethnic Relations and the Mass Media of the Belarusian National Assembly, Yury Kulakovsky, in published remarks.

It was not immediately clear Wednesday why Belarus is apparently seeking closer ties with the Vatican while at the same time preparing to ban foreign priests from the country.

AUTOCRATIC PRESIDENT

Analysts have suggested that the increasingly isolated administration of autocratic President Alexander Lukashenko wants to control all churches in the country. Belarus generally supported the official Orthodox Church, as it also kept close ties to Moscow since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

However especially active non-Orthodox Christians have been targeted by the government, several churches and other sources have said.

Belarus' Roman Catholic minority, comprises up to 17 percent of the country's population and is concentrated in the western part of the country, according to estimates. Smaller Christian groups include evangelicals and other Protestant Christians.

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Belarusian constitution provides for religious freedom, but government restricts this right in practice, says US State Department says in report

The Belarusian constitution provides for freedom of religion, but the government restricted this right in practice, says the US State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor in its International Religious Freedom Report covering 2006 and 2007.

The report, published ion September 14, notes deterioration in respect for religious freedom during this period.

“The Government continued to restrict religious freedom in accordance with the provisions of a 2002 law on religion and a 2003 concordat with the Belarusian Orthodox Church (BOC), a branch of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and the only officially recognized Orthodox denomination,” the Bureau says. “Numerous anti-Semitic acts and attacks on religious monuments, buildings, and cemeteries occurred with little discernable response from the Government.”

“Authorities kept many religious communities waiting as long as several years for decisions about property registration or restitution,” the report says. “Authorities also harassed and fined members of certain religious groups, especially those that the authorities appeared to regard as bearers of foreign cultural influence or as having a political agenda. Foreign missionaries, clergy, and humanitarian workers affiliated with churches faced many government-imposed obstacles, including deportation and visa refusal or cancellation.”

“The Government continued to use textbooks that promoted religious intolerance, especially toward ‘nontraditional’ faiths,” the report says. “Leaders of Protestant communities criticized language in the textbook Basics of Home and Personal Security as discriminatory against Protestants, particularly the chapter entitled ‘Beware of Sects.’ The chapter includes a paragraph informing students of such ‘sects’ as Seventh-day Adventists, the Church of Maria, White Brotherhood, and Jehovah's Witnesses. The Ministry of Education continued to use the textbook Man, Society, and State, which labels Protestants and Hare Krishnas as ‘sects,’ even after protests by religious groups. The authorities promised to change the language in the next edition of the books; neither book was republished by the end of the period covered by this report.”

“Unlike in previous reporting periods, state-owned periodicals did not attack Jewish religious groups; however, the sale and distribution of anti-Semitic literature through state press distributors, government agencies, and stores affiliated with the BOC continued,” the report says. “During the reporting period, anti-Semitic and Russian ultranationalist newspapers and literature, DVDs, and videocassettes continued to be sold at Pravoslavnaya Kniga [Orthodox Book], which sells Orthodox literature and religious paraphernalia.”

“There were some positive developments in respect for religious freedom during the reporting period,” the Bureau notes. In particular, authorities granted the St. John the Baptist Catholic Community permission to build a church in Minsk and gave the community a plot of land for the building. Construction began on June 15, 2007. This was the first Catholic church to be built in Minsk since the 1917 Bolshevik revolution. //BelaPAN

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