Retired Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz
Ever the “good soldier”
On the evening of January 6, 2021, just-retired Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz of Minsk-Mogilev, Belarus, celebrated Mass for the feast of the Epiphany at the Cathedral of St. Francis Xavier in his hometown area of Grodno, in western Belarus near the border with Poland. It was a very emotional time for the Grodno Catholics and for the archbishop himself; the requisite resignation every bishop offers the Pope upon his 75th birthday had just been accepted and the archbishop was bidding his flock a final farewell.
Archbishop Kondrusiewicz had been barred on August 31, 2020, from returning to Belarus after visiting family in Poland because he had criticized the government crackdown on protests against the contested re-election of Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenko. The archbishop was allowed to return Christmas Eve after an envoy from the Vatican met with Lukashenko in Minsk. “When I crossed the border, I