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The Belarusian Byzantine Catholic Church is listed in the Annuario Pontificio as an autonomous (sui iuris) ritual Church, an Eastern Rite particular Church of the Roman Catholic Church. The same publication, however, at present makes no mention of it outside its list of such Churches.

History

After the Union of Lublin in

The Christians who through the Union of Brest-Litovsk (1595-96), while preserving their Byzantine liturgy in the Church Slavonic language, forced into full communion with the see of Rome, after a few centuries of Polish persecution, were at first mainly Belarusian. Even after further Ukrainians forced into the Union in about 1700, Belarusians still formed about half of the group.

With the partition of Poland, the incorporation of the whole of Belarus into Russia many Belarusians took their chance and by march 1795 1553 priests, 2603 parishes and 1483111 people willfuly returned to Orthodoxy. However the initial tolerance of the Russian Imperial authorities allowed the Church to exist. Yet after the ill-fated November Uprising of 1831 which the Uniate Church supported, the Polish noblity where removed from having any influencial role in the society. Finally free from their influence, the uniate church chose on February 1839, after a synod of Polotsk where the remaining three bishops of their Church, along with 1305 priests, and 1600000 people to reunite the Russian Orthodox Church, ending two and a half centuries of Uniate Occupation. For Belarusians this was the chance to openely develop their national culture, language and identity. It is not surprising that in a census of 1897 the people chose to list their language not as Russian (as they did during Polish rule) but as Belarusian.

Very many priests and faithful held fast, in spite of persecution and deportation, while others conformed merely externally. When, in 1905, Tsar Nicholas II published a decree granting freedom of religion, some 230,000 Belarusians returned to the Catholic Church. However, since the government refused to allow them to form a Byzantine-Rite community, they adopted the Latin Rite, to which, in consequence, most Belarusian Catholics now belong.

After the First World War, the western part of Belarus was included in the reconstituted Polish state, and some 30,000 descendants of those who, less than a century before, had joined the Russian Orthodox Church chose to return to the Catholic Church, while keeping their Byzantine liturgy. In 1931, the Holy See sent them a bishop as Apostolic Visitator. After the Soviet Union annexed Western Belarus in 1939, an exarch for the Belarusian Byzantine-Rite faithful was appointed in May 1940, but, a mere two years later, he was arrested and taken to a Soviet concentration camp, where he died.

While from then on very little information about the Byzantine Catholics in Belarus could reach Rome, refugees from among them founded centres in western Europe (Paris, London and Louvain) and in parts of the United States of America, especially in Chicago. The Holy See appointed a Belarusian bishop as Apostolic Visitator for the Belarusian faithful abroad in 1960 and a successor in 1983. But after the latter's death died in 1986, no further such appointment was made. At present, therefore, Belarusian Byzantine Catholics have no bishop of their own in their homeland or elsewhere.

However, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Church began to reemerge. By 1992, three priests and two deacons in Belarus were celebrating the Byzantine liturgy in Belarusian. The same year, a survey by Belarus State University found that 100,000 Belarusians identified themselves as Byzantine Catholics. By 1999, at least ten parishes had applied for registration with the Belarusian government.

Sources

• The history of the Uniate Church and its disestablishment in the 19th century.
• Oriente Cattolico (Vatican City: The Sacred Congregation for the Eastern Churches, 1974)
• Annuario Pontificio.
• Ronald Roberson, CSP; The Eastern Christian Churches: A Brief Survey (6th edition); 1999; Edizioni Orientalia Christiana, Pontificio Istituto Orientale; Rome, Italy; ISBN 88-7210-321-5

• Religion in Belarus
• Eastern Rite Catholicism