The US State Department in
their annual report regarding the state of the religious freedoms in the world
state that the rights of believers and religious confessions are violated in Belarus. Whether changes are feasible
within the relations between the state and churches in Belarus?
Since 2002 the Law on “the
freedom of religion and religious organizations” is enforced in Belarus. From the start this law has only
been supported by the leaders of the Orthodox church, while representatives of
other confessions still sharply criticize it.
The Law interprets
Orthodox religions as the major religion in the country
The preamble of the Law
recognizes the leading role of the ‘orthodox church in the historical context
and in the development of spiritual, cultural and state traditions of the Belarusian
people”. The Head of the Orthodox Church Metropolitan Filaret said that there
was ‘nothing undemocratic’ in such preamble. It “does not contradict the basic
legal principles of the countries of the European Union”.
Moscow and All-Russia Patriarch
Alexi II visited Belarus six times, the last of which was literally a month and
a half prior his death. In the course of all his visits Alexi II was welcomed
at the highest level and met with the President Aleksandr Lukashenko. The Head
of the state regularly meets only with the Metropolitan Filaret and visits
religious events in orthodox churches only.
One of the orthodox priests
that would not like to name himself, assessed the relations between the church
and the state in the following way, “it is traditional for the orthodox church
to seek for close relations with the state. It is not due to the fact that it
supports the regime of Lukashenko in general, that the church likes him so
much. If someone else comes to power, the church will seek for relations with
the new authorities as well. It is simply traditional for this church”.
Catholic church: deficit
of priests, deportation of ksiendzs
On the other hand,
relations of the Catholic church with the Belarusian authorities were always
rather complicated. The Pope has never paid a visit to Belarus, a county with over a million of
Catholics. Metropolitan of Minsk and Mogilev, Archbishop Tadeusz Kandrusievicz
assessed the present situation: “Catholic church is in a very complicated situation.
30 per cent of parishes do not have a place where they could serve the holy masses.
Registration is not always easy to obtain also, and it is even harder to
receive a permit for the construction of a new church and to get land for that
purpose. Personnel situation is complicated too. Today we have two thirds of
priests working that are Belarusian citizens and about 100 priests or one
third, are coming from abroad. It is hard for me to understand today why
priests from abroad are not allowed to come here”.
Actually right before
Christmas a few Catholic priests, citizens of Poland, were refused a right to continue
their religious activity in the territory of Belarus next year. The official reason for cancellation
of contracts with ksiendz Jan Skaeczny from Porazav, Andrzei Krauczyk from
Slonim and Jan Branouski from the village Galynka of Grodno Oblast, Zbignev
Grygarcevicz from Borisov was as follows: “ksiendzs were not able to speak the
state languages of the Republic of Belarus”, said the Head of the Department of
the Secretariat of the High Commissionaire for religious and nationalities affairs
Marina Tsvilik. This was not the first case when priests that do not have the
Belarusian citizenship were refused the right to continue their religious
activities in Belarus.
For four years the
believers are fighting to return the buildings of the Cathedral of St. Joseph
and Bernardin’s temple in Minsk. Following the information about
the intention of the Minsk City Authorities to give these sacred buildings to
investors for reconstruction as hotel and recreational complexes, believers
collected over 30 thousand signatures addressed to the Head of the state and
city authorities however they have not received a feedback. The Military
command and the prosecutor’s office managed to save the building of the temple
however the church still hosts Belarusian State Archive Museum of Literature,
Art and Scientific and Technical Documentation. For over three months believers
of various Catholic parishes are fasting as a result of daily street messes by
the door steps of the Cathedral they were serving for almost four years.
Protestants are still
collecting signatures for changes in the legislation
Representatives of other
confessions are facing pressure as well. For eight years there has been a
conflict between the supporters of the protestant church “New Life” and the
authorities. The city administration allowed the protestants to purchase the
building of a former cowshed and when the believers reconstructed it, the
authorities forbid to use it for religious purposes. Believers went through all
the legal stages, including court system trying to solve the issue with no
result. Over 200 people in the course of 23 days held a fast-hunger strike in
the church. Two years after the trial has been re-opened again. However the
major issue with regard to the relation between the authorities and the church
lies under the surface believes a lawyer of the church “New Life” Andrey
Lukanin, “the main thing that does not change is the legislation which makes it
impossible to practice other religions. We have collected over 50 thousand
signatures in this regard. What concerns our church, the decision has not yet
been made by the Judge of the Highest Economic Court. The issue is not only about the
church “New Life”, though many view our case as litmus of the attitude of the
authorities towards confessions. If something is going to change it should
start from the changes in the legislation in the religious sphere. We are not
only thinking about ourselves, our own business and property. We also seek for
freedom to come into the sphere of religion so that all Christian confessions
in our country could have it”.
Krishna worshipers are assessed as a “destructive
sect” in the text books
It was only this year that
the authorities registered 6 out of 7 communities of the International Society
for Krishna Consciousness. The Krishna community was refused registration in the course of 6 years
after the new law on the freedom of religion was adopted. A member of the
Council Sergey Malakhovsky is convinced that “if one considers that it was a
re-registration of the Minsk community, it would be possible to say that some
steps towards liberalization in this area were made. However Belarusian text
books on Religion Studies assessed the movement of the Krishna confession as “religious,
totalitarian, destructive sect”. In another words I can see that they are
preparing grounds to eliminate multi-confessional society in the country and to
stick to unified state line”.
«The authorities
are not eager to change their policy»
Methodologist Uladimir
Matskevich, a protestant, while assessing the situation in the sphere of
religion in Belarus said, “The last case of deportation
of Polish ksiendzs showed that the practices of pressure on other confessions that
are not orthodox, continue. There are no substantial changes or moves. The
issue of land allocation for the construction of churches is unresolved, as
well as ways to change the state of churches into cult buildings. The issue of
equality of all confessions before the law and the state is unresolved too. In
this sense, there are no legislative, organizational changes that took place
this year worth mentioning”.
The Editor of the portal “Church”
Natalia Bazylevich said that “today we see that talks about concordat (an
agreement between the Pope as the Head of the Rome-CatholicChurch and a country) remained only in
verbal form. The recent case of three Catholic priests being refused the right
to continue their religious activity witnessed that all the hopes for changes
in the relations between the Catholic Church and the state were illusionary. The
pressure imposed on Protestant churches continues, the issue of the church “New
Life” remains unresolved, priests were summoned to the KGB. Also the detention
of a well-known bishop Veniamin Brukh… all this proves that the state is not
eager to change its policy, at least at the moment”.
