English

Wednesday’s demonstration against Minsk government’s plans for former Catholic monastery complex passes off without incident

Wednesday’s demonstration against the Minsk government’s plans to convert a former Catholic monastery complex into a hotel passed off without an incident, BelaPAN reports.

About 20 people took part in the event. Singer-songwriter Tatsyana Belanohaya performed to them near the entrance to the St. Joseph Church, one of the buildings of the monastery complex.

Activists of Belarusian Christian Democracy (BCD) vowed last week that they would demonstrate in front of the complex every day as part of a campaign for its return to Catholics.

The first demonstration was staged on September 16 with some 50 people in attendance and 18 being preventively arrested by police. Twelve people were arrested on Monday and seven people on Tuesday. On all occasions, the protesters were released without a charge.

Catholics have, since 2005, been pushing for the return of the 17-century Bernardine monastery complex, which was until recently used as a depository for archival materials.

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

The Russian Empire took away the monastery complex from the faithful in 1864 after suppressing the 1863-64 anti-Russian uprising.

Leanid Hulyaka, the government’s commissioner on religious and ethnic affairs, said in June that the complex might be returned to the Catholic Church, but three weeks later he pointed out reporters that the complex could not be returned because there was nowhere to move the Belarusian State Scientific and Technical Archives and the Belarusian State Art and Literature Archives.

However, Mikhail Zhykh, chief engineer with KUP Minskaya Spadchyna, a construction company run by the city government, announced in early August that the former monastery complex would be converted into a hotel and a museum by the 2014 World Ice Hockey Championship to be hosted by the Belarusian capital city.