Lukashenko declared his readiness to support all confessions in training clergy in Belarus

At today’s meeting with representatives of Belarus’ religious denominations, President Aleksandr Lukashenko declared his readiness to support all confessions in training clergy inside the country, BelTA reports

photo: www.president.gov.by

Reacting to the speech of Chief Rabbi of the Religious Association of the Progressive Judaism Communities in Belarus Gregory Abramovich, the Belarusian leader mentioned the Volozhin Yeshiva, which was the largest world centre of Jewish education of the 19th century. The building was recently restored and housed a museum exhibit. “I was involved in this. The military are very proud of this facility. They say they were helping with it. I recently visited Volozhin and looked at some elements of this centre,” the Head of State said.

Aleksandr Lukashenko stated that other confessions in Belarus are also ‘developing’ such important historical and spiritual centres, “It’s good to have them in a specific place, where everyone will have access. These facilities will be located, if you decide to do so, where our most devoted believers live, like in Zhirovichi [referring to the Orthodox monastery in Zhirovichi],” the President said. “It’s not somewhere in the centre of Minsk, but where the place is prayerful, as we say. Therefore, if you decide to develop the Volozhin centre, we will create a real centre there. I would like it to have your school there, just like the Orthodox, where you will train future believers.”

In this connection, the President recalled that 10-15 years ago the issue of Catholic priests in Belarus was raised, “When I met with the Pope at that time, I told him not to send us clergymen from Poland, as there is always some distrust and so on. I don’t know how it is now, whether the situation has levelled out or not, but there are no such complaints.”

Speaking about all confessions in general, Aleksandr Lukashenko emphasised the importance of training our own personnel inside the country, “I want us to train our own, to have our own cadres of clergy – patriots who love their country and defend it. It does not matter whether they are Muslims, Jews, Orthodox, Catholics, Baptists, etc. They have to be from Belarus. Their roots should be here. There should be schools in these centres, and we are ready to support you as well as the Orthodox in these schools regarding training and teaching. I think all denominations have enough intelligent people to teach in these schools. I am sure that the strengthening of our society will start from here. All of us will make our worthy contribution to this.”