The Belarusian authorities are going to turn the former monastery and the Catholic Church building into the entertainment center with the hotel, casino, restaurant and underground parking.It is a disgrace of the Catholic sanctuary; the Catholics have expressed their indignation and turned to Benedict XVI for help. Every day at 6p.m. the believers gather at St Joseph Roman Catholic Church in Minsk.
They pray for the church to be given back to the congregation. The militiamen do not interfere but only watch “, the Polish Gazeta Wyborcza writes.
“It so happened that they detained us but now they only make video recordings occasionally”, Ivonna Matskevich, chairman of the Parish Committee reported. Recently Ivonna Matskevich met with Chairman of the Minsk city executive council Mikhail Paulau. . He said that the final decision was made.
" We have made the decision. We are authorities. We have to feed people”, the mayor declared.
The St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church in Minsk was founded in XY century. Initially it was made of wood and was burnt several times, but every time it was rebuilt. The church acquired its present outlook in XY century.
Among the Church investors were the noble ancestries of Lavish, Kasnousky and Tishkevich, whose graves are housed in the crypt under the temple.In the Soviet times the monastery was occupied by the military commandant’s headquarters and public prosecutor’s office and the archives.
In early nineties the authorities eagerly returned sacred buildings to congregations, but the public prosecutor’s office and army didn’t agree.
In 2001 the authorities registered the parish of St Joseph but until now they have not got the church. Early this year the army left the buildings of the monastery and the church. They are empty but nobody is going to give them back to the believers. The entertainment center is to be built there.
“The site is in the center of the city. The great money is involved that is why nobody thinks either of belief or of history”, the Minsk architect speaks anonymously. The Minsk Catholics are gathering signatures under the appeal to Alyaksandr Lukashenka. They have already gathered 12 thousand signatures.
Catholic intelligentsia representatives also appealed to Pope Benedict XVI. “At present around 2 million people live in Minsk but only 4 catholic churches are open to the congregation there”, coordinator of the Charter’97 Zmitser Bandarenka, one of the authors of the letter to Pope of Rome, said.
The conflict around the St Joseph Roman Catholic Church has been developing at the background of the monetary relationship between the regime and the Catholic Church in Belarus.
In December last year several Polish catholic priests were deported from the country.
The construction of new catholic churches in Garodnya and Lida has been banned.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Clerical Whispers’ for any or all of the articles placed here.
The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Sotto Voce