{"id":542739,"date":"2026-05-15T14:52:52","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T11:52:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reform.news\/?p=542739"},"modified":"2026-05-15T16:34:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T13:34:25","slug":"coale-explains-how-approval-was-secured-for-protestant-festival-in-minsk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/coale-explains-how-approval-was-secured-for-protestant-festival-in-minsk","title":{"rendered":"Coale Explains How Approval Was Secured for Protestant Festival in Minsk"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>US presidential envoy <b>John Coale<\/b> told <a href=\"https:\/\/t.me\/radiosvaboda\/86681\">Radio Svaboda<\/a> how permission was obtained to hold a large Protestant festival in Minsk.<\/p>\n<p><em><i>&#8220;I simply asked Lukashenka whether Franklin [Graham] could come and preach. He said yes,&#8221;<\/i><\/em> the American diplomat said.<\/p>\n<p>As previously reported, the \u201cFestival of Hope,\u201d involving Protestant churches, will take place at Minsk\u2019s Chyzhouka Arena on May 16-17. <b>Franklin Graham<\/b>, president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, arrived in Belarus from the United States for the event. Earlier today, he <a href=\"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/lukashenka-holds-meeting-with-american-preacher-franklin-graham\">met with <b>Alyaksandr Lukashenka<\/b><\/a> at the Palace of Independence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>US presidential envoy John Coale told Radio Svaboda how permission was obtained to hold a large Protestant festival in Minsk. &#8220;I simply asked Lukashenka whether Franklin [Graham] could come and preach. He said yes,&#8221; the American diplomat said. As previously reported, the \u201cFestival of Hope,\u201d involving Protestant churches, will take place at Minsk\u2019s Chyzhouka Arena [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":495645,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sharing_image":{"poster":"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/6a0720e48cec1.jpg","width":1200,"height":630,"template":"691142dd","mode":"auto"},"_sharing_image_fieldset":{"dTVKfmI95PYT":"Coale Explains How Approval Was Secured for Protestant Festival in Minsk"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[142338,143090],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-542739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-politics"],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}