“Clerics and religious must remember they are called to preach Christ’s teaching, not their own opinions and views, especially those that could cause confusion, scandal or division … This includes abstaining from political statements and expressions,” a statement from the bishops’ conference said.
“Spiritual and religious persons who speak to the media must show fidelity to the Gospel, appropriate knowledge and competence, prudence and responsibility for the spoken word, concern and love for the truth, respect for others and a sincere search for the common good, so the Church may effectively carry out her mission.”
The order appeared as Fr Henrykh Akalatovich faced trial in Minsk behind closed doors. Akalatovich, a parish rector from Valozyn, was detained in November 2023 for “treason against the state” and later suffered a heart attack and underwent gastric cancer surgery in prison.
The bishops’ order also applied to seminarians and lay Church staffers, and was intended to ensure “an organised and fruitful transmission of the Gospel message in the media”, the bishops said, as well as “accurate information about the Catholic Church’s life in Belarus”.
They added that anyone seeking media contacts must have “express consent” from their bishop or superior, and would “bear personal moral and juridical responsibility for their publications and actions”.
Catholics make up one tenth of the 9.4 million inhabitants of Belarus. There are 1,200 political prisoners in the former Soviet republic, including Ales Bialiatski, winner of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize.
At least three dozen Roman and Greek Catholic clergy had faced arrest since August 2020, when protests against the disputed re-election of Alexandr Lukashenko for his sixth term as president met severe political repression which prompted international sanctions.
In a November commentary, Poland’s Catholic Information Agency said the 70-year-old Fr Akalatovich, who was secretly ordained under Soviet rule in 1984, had “a long history of service to the Church and resistance to the authorities”.
It added that the charges against him had not been specified by the Belarusian authorities, and said his detention had “exacerbated already tense relations between the Catholic Church and authoritarian Minsk regime”.
Akalatovich is one of two priests recognised as political prisoners by the Belarusian rights group, Viasna, alongside Fr Andrzej Yukhnevich, chairman of the Major Superiors, Delegates and Representatives of Institutes and Societies of Apostolic Life in Belarus, who was detained last May in connection with “actions on the internet”.
In an autumn report, the ecumenical Christian Vision organisation said two other Catholics priests were detained in October for distributing “extremist material” under Article 19:11 of Belarus’s Code of Administrative Offences, along with a Catholic history teacher from Uzmeny and three other lay Catholics.
It added that clergy from all denominations have been advised to delete their social media accounts to avoid being arrested or having their parishes stripped of legal status under a new Freedom of Conscience law, signed by Lukashenka in December 2023, which requires all religious communities to re-register with the state by July 2025.
The law, condemned by human rights groups and United Nations experts, prohibits religious activities deemed to infringe Belarus’s “sovereignty, constitutional system and civil harmony” and bars anyone “involved in extremist activity” from heading a religious community.