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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