After his last Mass in Grodno s Holy Redeemer Church on 27 December, Polish citizen Fr Jozef Geza left Belarus after 25 years service. Religious affairs official Aleksandr Rumak rejected his bishop’s request to extend the permission which foreign citizens need to conduct religious work. Rumak "won t comment" on his decision, his colleague Andrei Aryayev said. Last July, Rumak refused the latest request for permission for Fr Klemens Werth. A Russian citizen, he can therefore serve only in an administrative role in Vitebsk diocese.
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19 February 2021
Olga Glace, Forum 18
Bailiffs accompanied by police used an angle grinder and a crowbar on 17 February to gain access to Minsk s New Life Pentecostal Church to evict it. Officials told the Church they were enforcing a 2009 court order. Aleksey Petrukovich, who signed the enforcement order, refused to explain why the eviction happened, and why force was used. I am indignant. This is a hostile takeover of church property with the excuse of official papers, Sergiy Melyanets, a member of a different Church who witnessed the eviction, told Forum 18.
On 17 February, police and court bailiffs forcibly evicted New Life Full Gospel Church from the building it has used in the capital Minsk since 2002. Some 30 bailiffs, police, and Housing Repairs and Utilities Association officials took part in the eviction. Bailiffs used an angle grinder to cut the door lock to gain entry.