VATICAN CITY (AP) – Pope Francis on Sunday accepted the resignation of the Archbishop of Minsk, who had been blocked by Belarusian authorities for months from returning to his homeland after criticizing the crackdown on protesters against the government there.
Monsignor Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, in charge of the Diocese of Minsk-Mohilev, had not returned to Belarus until December 24, just in time to celebrate Christmas. That was almost four months after he was blocked from entering Poland when he returned from a religious visit to Poland. . The standoff ended last month after Francis sent a former Vatican ambassador to Belarus to Minsk to meet with the country’s authoritarian president Alexander Lukashenko.
Church rules require bishops to resign before their 75th birthday, and the Vatican said Kondrusiewicz, who turned 75 on Sunday, had done just that. The Pope immediately allowed him to resign. Often, popes allow bishops to stay on for months or even years after they turn 75.
The day after Kondrusiewicz tried to return to Belarus, Lukashenko accused him of “studying politics and dragging believers into it.” For weeks, massive protests had seen Belarusian citizens pour into the streets in daily protests demanding Lukashenko’s resignation.
The president’s victory after an August 9 election was widely regarded as fraudulent. Protests continued in spite of a brutal police crackdown that detained more than 30,000 protesters.
Francis appointed an apostolic clerk to provisionally head the archdiocese, Monsignor Kazimierz Wielikosielec, who has served as auxiliary bishop in the diocese of Pinsk.