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Lukashenka meets with top Roman Catholic cleric

Alyaksandr Lukashenka on April 6 met with Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, head of the Roman Catholic Church in Belarus, BelaPAN reports.

Under discussion at the meeting, which took place in the Cathedral Church of the Most Holy Virgin Mary in Minsk, were issues relating to cooperation between the state and the Roman Catholic Church, said the presidential press office. According to the press office, active work is currently underway on a draft agreement between Belarus and the Vatican.

The state will continue to support the dialogue between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, the press office quoted Mr. Lukashenka as saying.

Discussing the most important problems with top-ranking Catholic clergymen has become a good tradition, Mr. Lukashenka said.

"I believe that this is a good signal to our public," Mr. Lukashenka said. "However, I wouldn't like this meeting to be merely demonstrative. We should discuss specific issues that accumulated last year and discuss the religious situation in general."

"I'm glad that such relations are developing between the Catholic an Orthodox Churches," Mr. Lukashenka said. "This is very important for me and I will support this."

According to Mr. Lukashenka, the presence of Msgr. Kondrusiewicz at an Orthodox cathedral on Easter Sunday and their joint greetings to Orthodox believers "were properly received by the public."

Msgr. Kondrusiewicz echoed the view that his meetings with the head of state are important. According to him, "many issues were resolved" following Mr. Lukashenka's visit to the Vatican in April 2009.

The Catholic and Orthodox Churches should respond to modern-day challenges jointly, Msgr. Kondrusiewicz said. He stressed that he would continue to develop "constructive relations" with other denominations.

"Of course, there's a long way to go to full unity, but such a journey begins with the first small step" Msgr. Kondrusiewicz said. "And we’ve already made a large step. I'm glad that the state supports our aspirations for unity. Our future, which should be based on Christian values, will depend on this."

Mr. Lukashenka and Msgr. Kondrusiewicz exchanged Easter gifts, with the Belarusian leader presenting the cleric with an Easter egg depicting the famous Vilnius-located Icon of Our Lady of Ostra Brama, one of the most revered Catholic icons in Belarus and Lithuania that is also venerated by Orthodox believers.

They also discussed the fate of a former Bernardine monastery complex in downtown Minsk. Msgr. Kondrusiewicz also raised the issue of access to land plots in the city’s residential neighborhoods for the construction of Roman Catholic churches.

Mr. Lukashenka ordered Leanid Hulyaka, the government’s commissioner on religious and ethnic affairs, and Mikalay Ladutska, acting head of the Minsk City Executive Committee, to address the matter.

As for the former Bernardine monastery complex, Msgr. Kondrusiewicz earlier said that its fate should be decided with the participation of the faithful.

The 17th-century complex is located near Belarus` main Orthodox Christian church on Cyril and Methodius Street, housing the Belarusian State Archive of Scientific and Technical Documents and the Belarusian State Archive of Arts and Literature.

More than 30,000 signatures were collected in 2007 to a petition urging the authorities to return the buildings to the faithful and protesting against the Minsk city government’s alleged plans to convert the complex into a recreational center.