A summary by the International League for Human Rights August 1998

After more than half a century of anti-religious propaganda, the demolition of the religious mentality and even the physical extermination of religious people, priests and rabbis, a kind of "faith competition" is taking place in post-Soviet Belarus.

The largest religious group in Belarus is of course the Eastern Orthodox Church. The Belarusian Orthodox Church, led by Metropolitan Filaret, is subservient to the Moscow patriarchy as well as the Lukashenko government, which provides the church with economic privileges and aids it in the reconstruction of its churches, giving it special status among religious groups. Bowing to Moscow, the pro-Lukashenko Orthodox Church is an advocate of pan-Slavism, russification, and the incorporation of Belarus back into Russia. It is no great surprise that the Orthodox Church is continuously, and with visible success, trying to restore its status as state religion and become once more the official faith as it had been in the times of the Romanov Dynasty before the revolution.

Other religious groups existing in Belarus, Catholics, Jews, Protestant confessions, less than 4,000 Muslims, and a handful of Bahai followers, do not get any support from the government and, moreover, are systematically put down by the Orthodox Church and the government’s legislature. Catholic priests and monks as well as the various preachers belonging to some of the Protestant confessions with a long-time presence in Belarus are facing a lot of trouble not only in their religious work itself, but even in their attempts to enter the country. A feared draft law on religion puts all these groups in danger of further restrictions of their religious freedoms.

One Catholic group demonstrated all year round in front of a Cathedral in Minsk which had for a long time been used as a sports school. On one day of the protest, dozens of strong young men who study boxing and karate at the school unmercifully beat the demonstrators, mostly old men and women, with the connivance of the police. The authorities finally gave the Cathedral back to the Catholics, its rightful owners, to be used for its initial purpose, but conceded only because the whole affair had taken place in the capital and had received a lot of media attention.

The Belarusian Inter-confessional Association is, at the moment, the only organization in Belarus trying to promote inter-faith dialog and cooperation. It has not been met with much support by the government nor the Orthodox Church. The minority religious communities have not, for the most part, understood the importance of establishing inter-faith dialog, and have adopted a suspicious attitude toward BIA, being unfamiliar with such organizations.

There are currently about 100,000 people who consider themselves Jews in the Republic of Belarus. There are 16 Jewish communities, scattered through the cities and towns, the largest being located in Minsk, Mogilev, Gomel, Vitebsk, and Grodno. The Union of Religious Orthodox Jewish Congregations of Belarus was founded in 1994 by Rabbi Wolpin as an umbrella organization to solicit funding from abroad and distribute aid to these communities. The Jewish Union publishes a quarterly newsletter for the united communities in only 200 copies. A few years ago, the city government gave the Jewish Union a building and the land surrounding it in the center of Minsk, but the Union has no money for its renovation and upkeep. The building holds a dilapidated hall of worship called the New Synagogue and houses the small offices of Sahnut and the American Joint Distribution Committee.

Currently the New Synagogue, with the help of David Goldman of the BIA, is seeking funding for a mikvah , which would unite the Jewish communities of Belarus in Minsk. At present religious Jews seeking to perform their holy cleansing ritual must travel all the way to Moscow for the nearest mikvah.. Not only is there no mikvah thus far in Belarus, but there is also no kosher food sold in Belarusian stores. The second of the two synagogues in Minsk, the Central Synagogue, is run by a chapter of Chabad Lubavitcher and most of its congregation consists of the impoverished elderly pensioners whom it feeds and clothes. There are no signs of growing interest in Judaism among the younger generation, excepting those young men studying to become rabbis who will live and work in Israel or other countries.

Because there is such strong antagonism between Orthodoxy and Catholicism inside the country and both (as well as a number of Protestant groups) are actively seeking followers among the religiously unaffiliated population, the Jews are constantly being put under pressure. The government and many Christian groups issue quasi-religious propaganda to pressure the Jews. Lukashenko continuously reminds his fellow countrymen of the threat posed to Belarus by the international Jewish conspiracy and the world Zionist government whose agents are well known and can be easily recognized. Meanwhile, the Orthodox Church persists in its medieval habit of inciting the blood libel: it recently transported through the towns of Belarus the relics of Saint Gavriyl of Byalostok (now a city in Poland) who was slain, as legend has it, by the Jews.

The Jewish people's freedom of movement is restricted by economic means. Upon immigration to Israel, for example, the government demands a U.S.$400 administrative fee in order to forfeit one's Belarusian passport and citizenship. The Belarusian passport is turned in together with this processing fee (which equals more than 4 average monthly salaries) and a temporary document is given in return containing an exit visa, valid until departure. The justification given for this is that Belarus does not recognize dual citizenship (especially, it seems, in the case of Israel.)