Belarus or White Russia was part of the Russian Empire since 18th century, but it’s upper classes identified themselves as Polish and therefore catholic. Up to the 1905 Revolution, the czars suppressed each expression of national or cultural autonomy massively. The freedom of the Latin as well as the Greek Catholic Church was cut rigorousely; especially the uniated believers had to suffer, as their rite was forbidden totally in 1839. Only Chełmno Eparchy existed up to 1875, when it also was suppressed by Czarist regime. The majority of byzantine rite believers changed to Latin rite; the ones who by force converted to orthodoxy were allowed only in 1905 to return to Latin, not to uniated, catholicism.
This suppression nearly immediately changed into atheistic dictatorship, whis started in 1918 with declariation of the White Russian Socialistic Soviet Republic. Part of the USSr since 1922, from 1941 up to 1943 the country was occupied by German Wehrmacht. After decades of a brutal regime, Belarus achieved souvereignity in 1991, but in fact it did not respect civil rights in any way.
Thre Roman Catholic Church initially was organized in the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Mohilev, established in 1783, and the Diocese of Minsk, founded the same year. Indeed and against this nomenclature the Archbishop of Mohilev resided not in Belarus but in Sankt-Peterburg respectively in Petro-/Leningrad. Under the czars an own catholic hierarchy in Russia was forbidden due to orthodox claim of territorial and national representation and due to nationalistic politics; therefore the catholic prelate formally used a title from outside of areas which were reclaimed as orthodox.
Only in 1991, when St. John Paul II. united both seats to the new Archdiocese Monsk-Mohilev and additionally created the dioceses of Grodno (1991) and Vitebsk (1999), Belarus got its own catholic hierarchy. Just Minsk and the 1925 founded diocese of Pinsk had their own regular bishops up to 1925 respectively 1946.
On April 13, 1991, the Pope elevated 76 year old Monsignor Kazimierz Świątek, since 1989 Vicar General of Pinsk, as first Archbishop of Minsk-Mohilev. In his consistory of November 26, 1994, the Pope created him as first Cardinal of his country. He remained, highly appreciated, in duty up to June 14, 2006. Cardinal Świątek is a symbol of catholic religious suffering in Belarus: in 1944, after the end of German occupation, he was imprisoned by the entering Soviets and condemned to ten years of forced labor. After some months in a Minsk jail he had to spend two years in a Siberian gulag; then he was transferred to a working camp in Workuta. In 1954, Świątek was released and return for pastoral care to Pinsk.
Roman Catholic Belarussians in exile were taken care of by Apostolic Visitators:
13.06.1952 – 02.07.1960: Bolesļavs Sloskāns, Titular Bishop of Cillio
02.07.1960 – 04.10.1981: Cheslav Sipovich, M. I. C., Titular Bishop of Mariamme
01.07.1983 – 02.01.1986: Vladimir Tarasevitch, O. S. B., Titular Bishop of Mariamme.
From 1986 up to his death 2015 the priest Alyaksandr Nadsan (08.08.1926 – 15.04.2015) served as Apostolic Visitator residing in London.
Bishop Bolesļavs Sloskāns
Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz
The Uniated Church in today’s Belarus was forbidden in 1839. A ruthenic Diocese of Minsk had been created in 1798, but suppressed shortly afterwards. Up to 1914 it formally was administered by a Latin bishop; in 1925 it was abolished finally. On January 16, 1931, Bishop Mykola Charnetskyi, C. SS. R. – today beatified – could be nominated as Visitator for Greek Catholic belivers in Volhynia, Cholmshchyna, Polissia and Pidliashshia, i. e. northern Ukraine and southern Belarus. In 1939, Ukrainian Metropolitan Andrej Sheptyckyj of Lviv without having spoken with the Holy See established an Archiepiscopal Exarchate of Belarus, which was acknowledged by Rome in 1941 and which vanished due to the war as soon as 1944. From 1939 up to 1940 Bishop Mykola Charnetskyi, C. SS. R., was Locum tenens of the Exarchate, before from 1940 up to 1943 Fr. Antoniy Nemantsevich, S. I., became first and only Exarch. He was imprisoned by Gestapo in 1942 and died on January 6, 1943, in jail. Clandestine flocks existed no more, especially after return of the communists, up to 1990, when renewal started in Minsk, Polotsk and elsewhere. In 1994, Polish Archimandrite Sergey (Jan Sergiusz) Gajek, M. I. C., was appointed Apostolic Visitator for the uniated believers in Belarus. These then lived in one deanery with eleven an in 2023 with 16 parishes. However, the situation remains difficult, for the state only recognizes the Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic Church, but not the Greek Catholic one. This one only remains informally accepted, but without allowance for church constructions; a Ukrainian monch has been expelled. The Holy See recognized the parishes themselves, but – obviousely with consideration of orthodox wishes – did not found a formal canonical jurisdiction. The Visitator, who used to live in Rome and Lublin, only was in Belarus for visitations. At the end, in 2023 an Apostolic Administration for Belarus was errected with Archimandrite Gajek at its top.