Taking their inspiration from the successful campaign by New Life Church, a Roman Catholic parish in Grodno, Belarus, has announced a hunger strike to begin on 1 December if authorities do not permit construction of a new church building.  Parishioners have been waiting ten years for the government to approve the building project.

In October, New Life Church, a charismatic Protestant group in the capital of Minsk, launched a hunger strike to protest the government's decision to demolish their building.  The protest drew support from across Europe and was publicised around the world; within two weeks, a Belarusian court ordered the government to re-consider the situation.

On 24 November more than 100 members of the Catholic parish of Our Lady of Ostrobrama delivered an ultimatum to the offices of their local Regional Executive Committee. Having petitioned unsuccessfully to build a church in the city of Grodno [Hrodna] for nearly ten years, they intend to go on hunger strike if they do not receive official state permission by 1 December. While Grodno Regional Executive Committee chairman Vladimir Savchenko reportedly promised the Catholics that the authorities would soon grant the relevant permission, parish priest Fr Aleksandr Shemet told Nasha Niva newspaper that he remained sceptical: "Promises are promises and a written answer is a written answer. I was born in this country and have lived here long enough to know what promises are worth."

New Life's example appears to have inspired the Grodno parish. "We are grateful to the Protestants for giving us courage," Fr Aleksandr remarked. "We prayed for the hunger-strikers every day during their protest."

Since President Aleksandr Lukashenko won re-election last March, in a vote denounced as corrupt by international observers, controls on religious activity have been tightened. Belarusian Christians, who in the past have tended toward passive acceptance of official harassment, have started to assert their rights more openly.

[B]elievers appear to be questioning whether they can now square a passive position with the moral obligations of their faith.

In the wake of this year's presidential elections, the Evangelical Belarus Information Centre reported that on 20 March more than half of those demonstrating against the regime in central Minsk raised their hands when asked who would join in prayers for Belarus: "The next day almost everyone responded to the same request, and the day after that the majority of songs heard in the tent camp were Christian." Forum 18 has seen a photograph of one column of post-election demonstrators marching behind banners bearing New Testament verses: "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for what is right" [Matthew 5:6] and "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom" [1 Corinthians 3:17].

Of all European nations, Belarus imposes the most stringent restrictions on religious organisations and their activities.  Any unapproved activity is ipso facto illegal and liable to heavy fines.

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