{"id":4586,"date":"2021-01-03T13:54:33","date_gmt":"2021-01-03T13:54:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=145634"},"modified":"2021-01-03T13:54:33","modified_gmt":"2021-01-03T13:54:33","slug":"pope-accepts-resignation-of-minsk-archbishop-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/01\/03\/pope-accepts-resignation-of-minsk-archbishop-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope Accepts Resignation Of Minsk Archbishop"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of the Catholic Archbishop of Minsk, the Vatican said on January 3.<\/p>\n

Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz was allowed to return to Belarus<\/a><\/strong> last month after being stopped from re-entering the country since August following a trip to Poland where he criticized the crackdown on protests against the contested reelection of strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka.<\/p>\n

It was not immediately clear whether Kondrusiewicz’s resignation was expected.<\/p>\n

The Vatican said in a short statement that the resignation was in accordance with a code that allows bishops to retire at age 75.<\/p>\n

While in Poland, Kondrusiewicz, who is a Belarus citizen, gave an interview to a radio station calling for an end to police violence against protesters and demanding the resignation of Lukashenka.<\/p>\n

Lukashenka, who faces ongoing protests by the opposition against his rule, accused Kondrusiewicz in November of plotting to “destroy the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets for months, declaring that opposition candidate Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya was the real winner of the country’s contested August vote.<\/p>\n

Tikhanovskaya wrote on Twitter<\/a><\/strong> on January 3 that the archbishop would preside over his last Sunday service later that day.<\/p>\n

“Belarusians have been truly blessed” to be under his guidance “during this difficult time”, wrote Tikhanovskaya, who remains in Lithuania after fleeing Belarus following the election.<\/p>\n

Catholicism is the second largest religious denomination in Belarus, after Eastern Orthodoxy.<\/p>\n

Based on reporting by AFP and Reuters<\/h6>\n<\/div>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of the Catholic Archbishop of Minsk, the Vatican said on January 3. Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz was allowed to return to Belarus last\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4586"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4586"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4587,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4586\/revisions\/4587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}