Elderly Priest in Belarus is Sentenced to 11 Years in a Penal Colony in Growing Persecution of the Church

 A Catholic priest in Belarus was arrested.  Father Henrykh Akalatovich,  pastor of the Catholic parish in Valožyn,  was sentenced to 11 years in a penal colony in Belarus on December 30th.  This action seems to point to growing persecution of Catholics in the country. 

According to OSV News,  the priest,  who had been on trial since November 25th in a closed session by the Minsk Regional Court,  pleaded not guilty but was convicted for “treason against the state. ” The independent news channel Belsat from Poland said due to the secrecy of the hearing,  the details of the charges against the priest were not publicly announced. 

Father Akalatovich,  was in danger of a sentence of seven to 15 years in the gulag,  according to local law.   OSV calls this a visible example of worsening persecution of the church in Belarus. 

The priest was detained November 17th,  2023, in Valožyn,  a town about 43 miles west of Minsk.  He spent more than a year in Minsk’s KGB detention center.  

He was kept in “the worst of the detention centers in Belarus,  commonly referred to as the ‘Amerika. ’ The name refers to the ‘American spies’ held there back in Soviet times.  During Lukashenko’s rule,  hundreds of his opponents have seen the walls of this place, ” the Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita reported November 24th.   They also reported on December 30th,  that Father Akalatovich will probably serve his sentence in the notorious penal colony of Novopolotsk,  the same one where Andrzej Poczobut,  a Polish minority activist in Belarus who was arrested in 2021, is serving his sentence. 

According to Belsat,  Father Akalatovich had previously suffered a heart attack and cancer,  and underwent stomach surgery shortly before his detention.  The priest requires special care and medical assistance,  but there is no information about his health since he was detained more than a year ago. 

The Catholic Church composes a 10th of the 9.4 million inhabitants of Belarus,  a former Soviet republic,  where,  as of November 11th, 1,287 political prisoners are incarcerated,  including the rights group founder,  Ales Bialiatski,  who won the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize.  

Under the new Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations law,  signed in December 2023 by Lukashenko,  educational and missionary activity by churches is restricted,  while all parishes must re-register by July of this year or face liquidation.  

The Vatican’s Croatian nuncio,  Archbishop Ante Jozic, left Belarus after a September 15th farewell Mass. 

Father Akalatovich comes from the village of Novaya Mysha in the Baranovichi region.  He began his ministry in 1984, after graduating from the Riga seminary.  He was once praised by the Belarusan regime for using Belarusian language in his sermons,  Belsat said,  adding that he likely started to be persecuted after rigged elections in 2020.