A Catholic bishop in Belarus has rejected claims by Russian government and Orthodox officials that his Church is being used by opposition groups and Western intelligence to fuel religious conflicts and bring down the regime of President Alexander Lukashenko.
“Our priests do not receive instructions from anyone, least of all of a political nature – there are appropriate liturgical rites and precepts for priests worldwide, who know what they should say to believers,” explained Bishop Yury Kasabutsky, a Minsk-Mogilev auxiliary and vicar-general standing in for the exiled Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz.
“The Church in Belarus is speaking truth about the situation, opposing violence and exhorting people to solidarity, unity, consent, peace and forgiveness. Perhaps this is preventing someone from implementing scenarios aimed at dividing society and at a bloody development of events.”
The bishop was reacting to claims by Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service director, Sergei Naryshkin, who accused the United States of using the minority Catholic Church to undermine the Belarusian state. He told his Church's online news agency priests needed “no directions” in their work of “praying to God for peace and harmony in society”, and would not “succumb to brainwashing”.
The controversy erupted amid continuing protests against police brutality since Belarus’s disputed 9 August election, in which President Lukashenko, in power since 1994, was declared the winner with more than 80 per cent of votes.
In his statement, Naryshkin said data suggested the US was “interfering unceremoniously in the religious situation in Belarus”, in a bid to set Catholics against the predominant Orthodox church, and to provoke government counter-measures by “using religious events, including sermons, prayer services and processions, to conduct political opposition propaganda”.
The intelligence director said: “Extremist opponents of the current Belarusian authorities, now hiding abroad, are hatching a high-profile provocation plan, in which an authoritative Catholic priest will be arrested, injured or killed. They calculate this will substantially raise anti-government sentiments among Catholics and spur them into more active involvement in street protests.”
In a message to Catholics in Mogilev, more than a month after being barred from returning from neighbouring Poland, Archbishop Kondrusiewicz warned proposed solutions to the crisis had not “brought desired results”, but said he was glad Belarus enjoyed “very good inter-Christian relations, especially between Catholics and Orthodox”.
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