“The publication of a book by one of our priests who was incarcerated for several years in Soviet gulags is an important event for Belarus, both in terms of historical culture and in terms of the appeal to the intellighenzia to take the path of the dialogue between Gospel and culture urged by Pope John Paul II”: so said Archimandrite Sergio Gajek, Apostolic Visitator for the Greek-Catholics in Belarus, in a statement to SIR announcing the forthcoming book presentation at the “red church” in Minsk (an important centre for the promotion of Christian culture) on Sunday 25 January. The book in question is “China, Siberia, Moscow. Marx and Lenin in liberty”, by Father Jazep Hermanovic, the 25th anniversary of whose death was celebrated in December 2003. A Belarussian edition of the book was published in 1962 but in Germany, then in an Italian translation in 1969, “but so far he stresses it was not known in post-Soviet Belarus, nor was its author”. In his book, Father Hermanovic member of the monastery of the Marian Fathers at Druja tells the harrowing story of his imprisonment, which began in 1948 when he was arrested by the “red guards” of Mao while he was serving in a Catholic Byzantine mission at Harbin in Manchuria. He was accused of being a spy for the Vatican and for Japan. Subsequently he was handed over to the Soviets who condemned him to 25 years hard labour in the gulags, of which he served seven”. The presentation of the book in the capital of Belarus is taking place in the context of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, which will end on Sunday, so “the event will also have an ecumenical aspect”. In Belarus, practising Catholics (Latin and Byzantine) form roughly 15% of the population, while practising Orthodox account for about 40%; the remaining part of the country’s 10 million inhabitants are agnostics or atheists.
