MINSK, Belarus (LifeSiteNews) – The government of Belarus has reportedly seized a major Church from a Catholic congregation. The regime of President Alexander Lukashenko terminated the contract on the gratuitous use of the church, allegedly due to its use being “too dangerous because of safety deficiencies.”
“This is undoubtedly a scandal,” a priest from Belarus told the TV station Belsat regarding the decision by the government to take the church away from the Catholic community.
The church is known as the “Red Cathedral” due to the color of its brick façade. It is located on Independence Square in Minsk, next to the Government House, and is one of the landmarks of the Belarusian capital. The state still owns the Church building; however, after Belarus gained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 the government had allowed the congregation “Roman Catholic Parish of St. Simon and St. Helen” to use the church free of charge.
The Cathedral has been closed since September 26, after a fire had broken out in the church. The Belarusian government has now ended the lease agreement with the Catholic congregation due to alleged safety hazards following the fire, according to several sources of the organization Christian Vizia. This is part of the message that they posted on their Telegram channel:
The authorities are terminating the contract of gratuitous use of the Red Church with the community “Roman Catholic Parish of St. Simon and St. Helen”. The church authorities have already received a notice to that effect. The parish is required to remove the property from the church within a few days.
There has been some conflict between the regime of Lukashenko and members of the Catholic Church in the recent past. In 2020 the government of Belarus prohibited Minsk’s Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz from returning to Belarus from Poland for four months. This was due to Kondrusiewicz’s criticism of police violence against peaceful demonstrators protesting against the alleged falsification of the August 2020 presidential election.
Furthermore, the 68-year-old ruler had threatened Christians with consequences after the 2020 election if they interfere in politics. “The state will not watch this with indifference,” Lukashenko warned. Clergymen who supported the democracy movement should be “ashamed.” Politics is out of place in churches and they should only be used for prayer, Lukashenko proclaimed.