Imprisoned Belarusian priests released weeks after cardinal’s visit
November 26, 2025
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CWN Editor's Note: Following a visit to Belarus by Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti, the prefect of the Dicastery for Eastern Churches, civil authorities released two priests from prison.
Fathers Henryk Okotolowicz and Andrzej Juchniewicz, who were political prisoners, are now at the Vatican.
Natalia Eismont, press secretary to the nation’s president, said that the prisoners received pardons “at the request of Pope Leo XIV, with the participation of Metropolitan Joseph Stanevsky [Archbishop Iosif Staneuski], as a gesture of goodwill, guided by principles of mercy and humanism, taking into account the health of the convicts, and also with the aim of developing relations between the Republic of Belarus and the Holy See.”
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