Three Polish Catholic priests who had served in Belarus for many years were forced to leave the country. All of them were ministering in the Diocese of Vitebsk.
This was reported by the Catholic magazine CREDO.
One of the clergy members affected is Fr. Stanisław Mrzygłód (in the photo above), a Salvatorian and long-time pastor of the parish in Braslaw, located at the diocesan shrine of Our Lady Queen of the Lakes. He has been frequently mentioned in state-run publications and has received recognition for his contributions to the development of the region's social infrastructure. However, the government has now denied him a renewal of his permit to serve as a foreigner. While this has not yet been officially announced, parishioners have been informed that the priest will have to leave Belarus.
Two other priests have faced a similar fate.
Fr. Zenon Szcząchor, also a Salvatorian and one of the first Polish missionaries to arrive in Belarus after 1990, has worked for 35 years in various parishes, helping to rebuild religious life after decades of atheism. Most recently, he served as a vicar at the Parish of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Vidzy.
Another priest, Fr. Waldemar Kujawa, a Conventual Franciscan, was serving as vicar of the Parish of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Udelo, located in the Glubokoye District of the Vitebsk Region. He has also been denied permission to continue his ministry.
According to information from the faithful, the decisions to deny permit renewals were made by local authorities in the Vitebsk region and approved by the Office of the Commissioner for Religious and Ethnic Affairs. The Diocese of Vitebsk has not yet issued an official statement. Some reports indicate that the priests may have to leave as early as May. Meanwhile, other clergy members of the Vitebsk Archdiocese have had their permits extended for only 6 months.
This situation is yet another example of Catholic clergy being denied the opportunity to work in Belarus in recent months. The Pinsk Diocese previously reported a similar incident in which two priests were forced to leave. At that time, the faithful speculated that the refusals could be linked to the assistance the priests provided to Greek Catholics; however, it is also possible that these incidents are unrelated. The two priests affected — Fr. Paweł Kruczek, who served in Belarus for nearly 20 years, and Fr. Adam Straczyński, who served for 11 years, have already left the country. The bishop described their "forced departure" as a source of pain. The Department for Religious Affairs in Minsk and the Brest City Executive Committee declined to comment on these decisions.
The criteria used by the authorities to grant or deny permission to minister remain unclear. There are growing concerns among the faithful that such decisions may soon affect even more priests, particularly those serving in the Minsk-Mohilev Archdiocese. All of this is happening against the backdrop of a serious shortage of local clergy within the Catholic Church in Belarus.