0
0
0
s2smodern

A new Jesuit parish in Vitebsk, Belarus.

On June, 16, St Ladislaus parish in Vitebsk, Belarus, was entrusted to the care of the Jesuits of the Russian Region by the local bishop, mons. Aleh Butkevich. Fr Victor Zhuk, the new pastor of the parish, is joining two other Jesuit priests, Stanisław Pomykała and Klemens Werth, who have been ministering for a number of years in the Vitebsk diocese, but with restrictions which the Belarusian government imposes on the priests and the religious from abroad. 

The Society of Jesus plans to build a church for the growing Catholic community in a new part of the city, together with a small pastoral centre, in order to offer activities characteristic of our charism. This is a new initiative in the area which in the past has seen a much larger presence of the Jesuits: Polotsk, the seat of the general curia of the Society during the period of suppression, is just 100 km away from Vitebsk.

The foundation of a new chapel in Belostok (Siberia).

On the eve of the liturgical memory of St Anthony of Padua, the Catholics in Belostok in Siberia (near Tomsk, where the Jesuits run the parish and the school) gathered for a joyful event – the foundation of a new church. The previous wooden church, built in 1908 by Polish settlers, burnt down in a fire in 2017, which broke off for an unknown reason. The Jesuits of Tomsk are entrusted with the pastoral care for a number of small (sometimes quite tiny) communities in the vicinity of the city (which means up to a few hundred kilometers; the area of Tomsk parish is larger than the whole of Poland).

0
0
0
s2smodern