“Pastor of the church in Volozhyn (Minsk region) priest Henrych Akałatowicz pleaded not guilty. No one from the episcopate or the nunciature came to the announcement of the verdict,” the Katolik.life website, blocked by the Belarusian authorities, reported on Monday. Information about the verdict was confirmed by the Viasna human rights center on its website.
The seriously ill priest has already spent a year in a Belarusian prison
Ailing 64-year-old Akałatowicz, by he was kept in custody for over a year. According to the Viasna center, he is a priest after a heart attackand recently passed stomach surgery in connection with oncological disease. His trial lasted about a month. At that time, the authorities Belarus They did not provide any information about him, Katolik.life reported. “For the first time in Belarus since the times of the communist regime the Catholic priest was tried under a political article in the penal code,” the portal emphasized.
The faithful assessed that no representatives of the Catholic Church when the verdict is announced comes from fear. “The fear is greater than in the 1930s (when communists ruled the USSR). Then, for sure, there was more solidarity” – the website quoted one of the believers.
The Belarusian patriot priest was already active in the Soviet Union
The Katolik.life portal reminded that Fr. Akałatowicz did not plead guilty, but only he asked the faithful to pray. The portal also wrote that the priest was repeatedly “the hero of state press materials“Belarus.
“One of the articles emphasized that the parish priest he always speaks Belarusianis known as a true patriot of Belarus. Father Henryk is known for dating back to Soviet times helped in the revival of the Catholic Church in (Belarusian) regions,” we read on Katolik.life.
Fr. Akałatowicz was born in Nowa Mysza near Baranowicze in the west of Belarus. To become a priest he studied underground. In 1984, he graduated from the Catholic seminary in Riga, one of the two seminaries operating during the communist era. Spiritual he was ordained secretly. As Nasha Niva wrote, he was there in Soviet times fined many timesamong others for visiting Katyn in 1984. Radio Swaboda emphasized that Akałatowicz is “known in Belarus a priest who helped in the revival of the Catholic Church back in the times of the USSR.
Some Polish media call Akałatowicz a “Polish priest”. He is a priest a citizen of Belarus of Polish origin.
In 2023 about Fr. Akałatowicz (Okołotowicz) the president demanded Andrzej Dudawho spoke about Poles imprisoned for political reasons in Belarus during the summit on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.