Established an Apostolic Administration for the faithful of the Byzantine Rite in Belarus with an Apostolic Administrator appointed
On March 30, 2023, the Vatican announced that His Holiness Pope Francis had established an Apostolic Administration for the faithful of the Byzantine Rite in Belarus, appointing Archimandrite Serhiy Gayek, the current Apostolic Visitator, as Apostolic Administrator.
Historical background
The Greek Catholic Church in Belarus is the successor of the dioceses of the ancient Kyiv Metropolia, which in 1596 restored unity with the Roman Apostolic See. Metropolitan Mykhailo Rohoza, under whose leadership the Kyiv Metropolis concluded the Union of Brest, was born in Minsk and, before he was elected Metropolitan of Kyiv, had been an archimandrite of the Minsk Ascension Monastery.
The Diocese of Minsk (Ruthenians) was established in 1798 and was oppressed in 1839 but never liquidated. The papal yearbook (l’Annuario Pontificio) mentioned it until 1924. In 1939, Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky, Metropolitan of Lviv of the UGCC, established an exarchate in Belarus. In 1941, Pope Pius XII appointed Metropolitan Andrey as the Apostolic Administrator of this exarchate. In 1988, the faithful began reorganization, continuing the civil registration of parishes. Since 1993, the existing parishes in Belarus have been entrusted to the pastoral care of Fr. Serhiy Gayek as Apostolic Visitator.
The Belarusian Greek Catholic Church has about 5,000 faithful organized in 16 parishes (Baranovychi, Brest, Vitebsk, Gomel, Hrodna, Ivatsevychi, Lida, Mohyla, Molodechno, Minsk, and Polotsk), where 16 priests and three deacons serve. There are four seminarians.
Biographical background
Fr. Serhiy Gayek was born on February 8, 1949, in Łyszkowice, Poland. In 1963, he graduated from high school in Łyszkowice, and four years later from the gymnasium in Łowicz. He joined the Marianist Fathers, taking the monastic name Sergius thereafter. From 1967 to 1974, he studied at the Faculty of Theology of the Catholic University of Lublin and later at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome, where he received his doctorate in 1983. On August 15, 1973, he took his perpetual vows in the Marianist Fathers, and on June 23 of the following year, he was ordained a priest.
After his ordination, he performed pastoral ministry in the Roman Catholic parish in Hlukholazy and concelebrated in the Greek Catholic parish in Kostomloti. From 1983 to 1999, he taught a theology of the Eastern Churches at the Ecumenical Institute of the Catholic University of Lublin. In 1993, Pope John Paul II appointed him Apostolic Visitator for Greek Catholics in Belarus. In 1996 he was advanced to the rank of archimandrite.
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