Orthodox Church Only Confession in Belarus that has Been Able to Open Significantly More Facilities over Last Five Years

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Apr. 1 – In the last five years, the Orthodox Church is the only confession in Belarus that has been able to open more religious facilities, government statistics show. Others like the Roman Catholics have grown only a few percent, some have not grown at all, and some, the Lutherans and Jews) have declined in number.

            In reporting these trends, Anton Godzyalkovsky of the ThinkTanks.by portal also provides data on the changes in the numbers of facilities for each of the 11 largest denominations in that country since the end of Soviet times (thinktanks.by/publication/2024/04/01/kak-izmenilos-chislo-konfessionalnyh-obschin-v-belarusi-po-sravneniyu-s-sovetskim-vremenem.html).

            Below are the figures he offers, all of which come from the Belarusian government:

Rank	Confession	Number of Communities in 1989	Number of Communities in 2024
1	Orthodox Christianity	744	1737
2	Evangelical Christian	158	526
3	Roman Catholic	282	500
4	Baptist	156	282
5	Seventh Day Adventist	-	73
6	Full Gospel Christian	-	62
7	Jewish	11	36
8	Old Believer	26	34
9	Jehovah’s Witnesses	4	27
10/11	Lutheran	-	24
10/11	Muslim	4	24

            The changes between 1989 and now reflect both growing interest in religion and changes in the demographic composition of Belarus, while the changes over the last five years that he summarizes reflect the increasing hostility of the Lukashenka regime to all forms of religion that he fears he can’t control.