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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

The Christians who through the Union of Brest-Litovsk (1595-1596), while preserving their Byzantine liturgy in the Church Slavonic language, returned into full communion with the see of Rome, were at first mainly Belarusian. Even after further Ukrainians joined 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 led to serious problems for the Belarusian Eastern-Rite Catholics, culminating in the decision, on 12 March 1838, of the remaining three bishops of their Church, along with 21 priests, to join the Russian Orthodox Church. Very many priests and faithful held fast, in spite of persecution and deportation, while others conformed merely externally. When, after the revolution of 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 been forced to join the Russian Orthodox Church returned to union with the Catholic Church, while keeping their Byzantine liturgy. In 1931, the Holy See sent them a bishop as Apostolic Visitator. After the Soviet Union ooccupied the eastern part of Poland 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 Belarusian 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

• 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

External links

• Template:Ru icon "The history of the Uniate Church and its disestablishment in the 19th century." A Russian propaganda pamphlet againts the Belarusian Church.

• Religion in Belarus
• Eastern Rite Catholicism