Two Polish missionary priests have been arrested in Belarus in a government crackdown on religious freedom.
On 8 May, Fr Andrzej Yukhnievich OMI and Fr Pawel Lemekh OMI were detained following a meeting of diocesan clergy at their parish church of Our Lady of Fatima, Šumilina.
A spokesman for their congregation, the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate said: “It was unclear what they were really arrested for.”
A later statement confirmed that both priests had been accused of “subversive activity to the detriment of the Belarussian state”.
In 2022, Fr Yukhnievich, the superior of the Oblate mission in Belarus, voiced solidarity with the people of Ukraine and appealed for prayers for an end to the war there.
According to Christian Vision, an ecumenical group monitoring Belarus’s religious freedom, Yukhnievich was sentenced to a 15-day confinement and Lemekh to 10 days, after a trial over video link.
In January President Alexander Lukashenko, who has held power since 1994, passed a law re-asserting government control over religious organisations.
It obliged all religious denominations in Belarus to re-register with the state in order to operate legally in the country.
Around 77 per cent of the 9.4 million population of Belarus are Christian with 80 per cent of these Orthodox. Catholics make up 14 per cent of the total population.
In 2020, Catholic clergy joined public protests against a general election which returned Lusahenko to power for the sixth time.
Freedom House, the American organisation monitoring global democracy observed that after the election, Lukashenko “attempted to
weaken the influence of the Catholic Church, which had denounced state violence against peaceful prodemocracy protesters”.
In August 2020, the Catholic Archbishop of Minsk-Mahileu was temporarily denied re-entry to Belarus despite being a Belarussian citizen.
Two months later, Fr Viachaslau Barok was imprisoned for 10 days for posting a caricature of Lukashenko on social media. He later fled Belarus for Poland, telling the Associated Press: “It’s clear that the number of priests subject to repression will grow [as the government tries] to force the church’s loyalty.”
He added: “The authorities want to demonstrate to the Vatican their unlimited power within Belarus.”
A 2023 report from Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) on religious freedom in Belarus, said the government “runs regular surveillance of religious believers through the KGB secret police”.
The report highlighted the closure of the “Red Church” of St Simon and St Helena in Minsk, where protesters hiding from the police had sheltered after the 2020 election.
In 2022, the Red Church, a Catholic parish, was subject to arson attack, which had resulted in “only minor damages”, said ACN. However, this “served as a pretext by the Belarussian administration” to close the church permanently.
Last May, Poland’s Catholic Information Agency listed 11 Catholic priests arrested in Belarus during 2022.
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