On April 9, the Supreme Court of Belarus rejected an appeal by the Greek Catholic parish of Saints Peter and Andrew the Apostle Brothers in Brest against a regional court ruling ordering its liquidation. The decision has now entered into force окончательно, Katolik.Life writes.
“Believers learned about this, but neither Catholic Church structures nor state bodies reported the liquidation of the parish of Saints Peter and Andrew the Apostle Brothers in Brest”, the outlet writes.
In addition to the Brest parish, local authorities liquidated the Greek Catholic parish of Saints Cyril and Methodius in Baranavichy. Together with the parish in Ivatsevichy, which failed re-registration in 2025, all three Greek Catholic communities in Brest Region have now been liquidated. While the Ivatsevichy parish filed for voluntary liquidation, the Brest and Baranavichy communities fought against closure in court and lost, the authors note.
The official reason for the liquidation is unknown. In one of the rulings, believers noticed wording about an alleged “threat to national interests”. Neither Catholic Church structures nor state bodies have publicly commented on the liquidation.
Following the liquidation, the communities lost the right to independently organize Byzantine rite services. Greek Catholics in Baranavichy are now attending Masses at the local Roman Catholic church. The issue of parish property has not yet been resolved.
As the outlet notes, all this took place under the new Vatican apostolic nuncio to Belarus, Archbishop Ignazio Ceffalia, who is himself a Greek Catholic priest of the Byzantine rite in the Italo-Albanian Catholic Church.
