Catholics in Minsk have launched a campaign to prevent a Communist-seized seventeenth-century church and monastery from being turned into a hotel and leisure complex, writes Jonathan Luxmoore in Warsaw. "We aim to rally everyone who can help resolve the problem," the Catholics said in a petition to President Alexander Lukashenko. "We appeal to all media, especially Christian newspapers, to spread light and information as widely as possible."

Officials in the Belarus capital announced the plans to convert St Jozef's Church and an adjoining Bernardine monastery after ignoring requests to return the buildings to the Catholic Church. The Catholics said officials had "completely ignored the cultural and educational significance" of the buildings.