Hrodna Catholics Announced Hunger Strike :: Charter'97 :: News

A hunger strike of Roman Catholic community of Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn (of Vostraja Brama), Mother of Mercy, has started in Hrodna. The Charter’97 press-center has been informed about that by the rector of the parish Father Alyaksandr Shemet. The reason is that for about 10 years the community cannot get permission for building a new church in Repin Street, 2. For today a priest and 11 parishioners are taking part in a hunger strike. One of the participants of the protest is 79 years old. The hunger strike is held in the building of a chapel. The number of protesters is constantly growing.

On November 24 believers held a protest action near the building of Hrodna regional executive committee. The chairman of the regional executive committee Uladzimer Sauchanka was given a petition: in case the permission would not be received before December 1, Catholics would announce a hunger strike of protest.

A meeting of the executive committee with believer was held then. The head of the Department for Religious and Ethnic Affairs at Hrodna City Executive committee Ihar Papou advised to the Catholics to write a letter to the chairman of the city executive committee Alyaksandr Antsipenka and ask for a land for construction. The letter was written on November 29, however they were told in the city executive committee that Mr. Antsipenka would be absent until December 10.

In 1996 a Hrodna Roman Catholic Diocese bought a lot of land of 0.27 hectares in the part of the city beyond Nyoman. A Catholic cemetery was situated there previously. A brick building of Peter and Paul chapel is situated there as well. It was built in the first half of the 17th century, and is a monument of architecture of Classicism. One of the patrons of the construction was Irish Catholic Peter O’Brian-Delassy, a companion-in-arms of a Russian commander Alexander Suvorov. A family vault of Delassy family is situated in the crypt of the chapel. However, in Soviet time the chapel was ransacked, and the burial vault desecrated.

After restoration services started in the chapel. No more than 20 parishioners could take part in them. “After our community was registered in the beginning of the year 1998, we were given permission for drafting a church, later reversed under far-fetched pretexts. That is why a community of more than 8,000 parishioners built a wooden chapel, but it cannot let in more then 300 believers. That is why a construction of a big church is the most important problem for believers now,” father Alyaksandr Shemet said.

Picture: Father Alyaksandr Shemet with his parishioners