In Belarus, Lukashenko has launched a campaign against Roman Catholics. Official Moscow supported the "smaller relative" to help him defend Putin's "Russian peace" and prevent any potential attempts within Belarus to claim autocephaly for the Belarusian Orthodox Church. Attacks on Catholicism are being examined in a piece by Paul Goble for The Jamestown Foundation.
Roman Catholics, who make up about 9-14% of the Belarusian population, were not "enthusiastic" about Lukashenko’s candidacy in the 2020 elections. Thus, it is quite natural that in order to maintain power, the "President of Belarus" has launched a rather broad and harsh campaign against Catholics and Catholicism in the country – the number of parishes is starting to decline, and priests are being sentenced for "treason."
Support also came quickly from the "elder sister." Official Moscow joined these efforts not only to help Lukashenko but also to protect its own "spiritual bonds." Recent events have even prompted officials in both capitals to "attack" the Ecumenical Patriarch and the Uniate Church in Belarus and Ukraine. One Russian expert even stated that Roman Catholics are "extremists" just like the Jehovah's Witnesses, who were the subject of the longest and harshest anti-religious campaign in modern Russian history.
Paul Goble points out that the anti-Catholic sentiment in Belarus and Russia will have consequences in international relations. Firstly, the Vatican is capable of drawing much more attention to the repression against its followers. Secondly, it is becoming more obvious to a growing number of people in the West that Lukashenko and Putin’s anti-Catholicism is a euphemism for anti-Westernism. As this understanding spreads, it will become harder for Western leaders to ignore attacks on Catholics in both countries.
Executive Summary:
- In advance of his sham re-election, Belarusian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka has launched an expanded campaign against Roman Catholics, the 14 percent of his nation who have been the most opposed to the Minsk strongman in the past.
- Moscow has joined this effort to help Lukashenko, defend Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “Russian peace,” and fight efforts inside Belarus to seek autocephaly for Belarus’s Orthodox church.
- These efforts may ebb after Lukashenko is safely “re-elected,” but hostility to Roman Catholicism in both countries is likely to continue. It could expand, given that Russian commentators are calling for treating Catholics as harshly as Jehovah’s Witnesses.
