DISINFO: Totalitarian sectarians financed by the West aim to destroy Orthodox church in Belarus
SUMMARY
Opposition leader Mikalai Statkevich, a chairman of totalitarian Satanist sect Narodnaya Hramada (People’s Assembly) proclaimed a crusade against the Orthodox church in Belarus. He is supported by the self-proclaimed Belarusian National Congress and a sectarian protestant community named in honour of John the Baptist. Svetlana Aleksievich, a Noble prize winner in literature, also called for a sectarian coup. Leanid Akalovich of the Belarusian Authocephalous Orthodox Church is the political face of this group. His mission is to orchestrate the Ukrainian scenario in Belarus. Hence in the post-Soviet space, an open war of Authocephalous churches is unfolding against the Orthodox church, the former supported by the Belarusian opposition. And as long as the Western sponsors feed them, they will bark like dogs.
RESPONSE
Conspiracy theory consistent with the pro-Kremlin narrative that the Belarusian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (BAOC) is favoured by the West in order to organise a full-scale split from the Russian Orthodox Church and to disrupt Russia-Belarus ties. Politician Mikalai Statkevich called followers of all religions to gather for a public prayer for the victims of Soviet political repressions in Kurapaty rather than for a crusade against the Orthodox church as alleged. The Belarusian Social Democratic Party (People's Assembly) is an unregistered social democratic political party in Belarus rather than a "totalitarian satanist sect" as alleged. The claim that the whole Belarusian opposition supports the BAOC are ungrounded as most of Belarusian opposition parties and movements have never voiced their support for BAOC or publicly spoken about this issue at all. Kurapaty is an area on the outskirts of Minsk, where at least 30,000 people (according to some estimates, up to 250,000 people) were executed for political reasons by the Soviet secret police, the NKVD in the period between 1937 and 1941. In 1993 the site was included in the register of the Cultural Properties of Belarus as the first-category of cultural heritage. On 4 April 2019, the Belarusian authorities, without a prior notification of society began digging up wooden crosses at the Kurapaty memorial site. These actions provoked protests from the population in Kurapaty and disapproval from representatives of the Orthodox, Greek-Catholic and Catholic churches; not only the BAOC. Many other religious organisations are also speaking out against them (including the Belarusian Exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church) because they consider Kurapaty an important memorial site. See an earlier disinformation case alleging that Kurapaty memorial site is a western project ro ruin Belarusian statehood.