Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz A Belarusian archbishop who has been denied entry back into his own country said the Vatican was doing everything in its power to resolve the situation and help him return.
To live in “forced exile” is difficult, Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz of Minsk told SIR, the news agency of the Italian bishops’ conference. “I can only live in spiritual unity with my people in prayer. I can always repeat, ‘Thy will be done,’” he said during a brief stay in Rome.
Archbishop Kondrusiewicz, president of the Belarusian bishops’ conference, was barred from re-entering his country from Poland on August 31. The previous weekend, he had a statement read in Belarusian churches warning that the country could be on the brink of civil war because of violence and demonstrations protesting the August 9 presidential election. President Alexander Lukashenko declared himself the winner for a sixth term in the widely disputed election.