A court in Hrodna, Belarus, added the resources of the Polish Catholic weekly Gość Niedzielny (“Sunday Guest”) to the list of “extremist materials”, including its website, Facebook and Instagram pages, as well as its YouTube channel. A Belarusian Catholic family publishing house was also declared an “extremist organization”.
This was reported by the Christian Vision resource.
According to the report, Gość Niedzielny, which has been published since 1923, has recently published a number of materials about Belarus. These included interviews with former political prisoners Ales Bialiatski and Andrzej Poczobut, articles about the Lukashenka regime, and reports on the expulsion of Polish Catholic priests from Belarus.
It is also reported that the Catholic family publishing house “Tekhnologiya”, which published religious literature among other works, was declared an “extremist organization”. Its director, Vatslav Bahdanovich, and his wife, Yelena, are Catholics. In spring 2026, repression affected the entire Bahdanovich family. Vatslav, Yelena, and their daughters Antonina and Viktoriya were detained. Bahdanovich was recognized as a political prisoner and was later released.
Pressure on “Tekhnologiya” has been continuing for several months. In February 2026, the publishing house announced that it was suspending its operations. In March, the KGB named Vatslav Bahdanovich among people allegedly linked to an “extremist formation” called the “publishers’ coalition”.
We previously reported that 11 Catholic priests in Belarus had been forced to leave their parishes because they had not received approval from the Office of the Commissioner for Religious and Ethnic Affairs to continue their religious activities, while some had received such permission only for a minimum period.
As LF reported, three Catholic priests, all Polish citizens who had served in Belarus for many years, were forced to leave the country. The authorities refused to extend their permits for further service. All of them served in the Diocese of Vitsyebsk.
As LF reported, two Polish Catholic priests who had served for many years in the Brest region were forced to leave Belarus.
As LF reported, four of the 16 Greek Catholic (Uniate) parishes previously registered in Belarus failed to complete mandatory re-registration. These were communities in Brest, Baranavichy, Ivatsevichy, all in the Brest region, and in Orsha.
We previously reported that in the Brest region the authorities liquidated all parishes of the Greek Catholic Church. The court ruling cited an alleged “threat to national interests”.
As LF reported, Catholic priest Anatoliy Parakhnevich, pastor of the parish in Olkovichi in Vileyka District, was detained. Previously, state propaganda media had mentioned the priest in a negative context after his participation in a reception marking Constitution Day of Poland, which was held at the Ukrainian Embassy in Minsk, attempting to portray it as something suspicious.
It soon became known that Anatoliy Parakhnevich had suffered a heart attack. The 65-year-old cleric remains in a pre-trial detention facility in serious condition. According to Belarusian believers, Parakhnevich is accused of “treason against the state”. There is no information about what exactly he is accused of. It is believed that the priest is being held in the KGB detention facility.
As LF reported, in Belarus the property of Catholic priest Henryk Okolotovich is being seized and sold by order of the KGB. The clergyman was convicted of “treason against the state” and released two years later following a request from the Vatican.
Earlier, a Catholic priest and two evangelical presbyters were detained in Belarus.
