Георгий Рой. Фото: facebook.com/georgewroi
Archpriest Heorhi Roi, who serves in a Belarusian Orthodox parish in Vilnius, said he saw himself featured on police boards titled “Wanted by Police.” The wanted notice cites Parts 1 and 2 of Article 361-4 of the Belarusian Criminal Code on “assisting extremist activity.”
“It turns out I am now on ‘Wanted by Police’ boards all across Belarus. So this is fame! A priest-criminal! Yes, life is an unpredictable thing,” he wrote on Facebook.
Heorhi Roi was forced to leave Belarus for Lithuania due to persecution by the authorities. In 2023, together with priest Aliaksandr Kukhta, he appealed to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew with a request to accept them under his omophorion because “for reasons of conscience they cannot remain under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate.” In 2023, they were accepted into the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.