Belarus (bbabo.net), - The end of December is the time when, on the eve of Christmas and New Year, people have a natural desire to take a break from politics and conflicts. Alas, there are always forces in the world that are ready to spoil the pre-holiday mood with various political statements and actions. Unfortunately, in this way they are trying to spoil the end of the year in Belarus.
It is known that a decent number of Catholics live in Belarus. Therefore, President Alexander Lukashenko congratulated his fellow citizens on Christmas on December 25:
“Dear compatriots!
From the bottom of my heart I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2023. The bright holiday reminds us that the great spiritual path of each person begins with the birth of small sprouts of faith, hope and love in the heart. Eternal Christian values give us strength, unite peoples and continents, inspire us to selfless service to our neighbor, call for mutual respect and the search for compromises. Christmas celebrations for Belarusians have always been a blessed time when we become kinder and more merciful, pay attention to relatives, help those in need, strengthen our unity with prayer and creation. This day immerses us in national traditions, which historically serve as the backbone of society. I am convinced that the desire for good neighborliness, peace and harmony is the key to a happy future for Belarus. I wish you all good health and prosperity. Let this Christmas become a new starting point for good deeds.”
In this case, it is clear that in Lukashenka's understanding, Christmas should help to unite people and awaken the best feelings in them.
The accomplices of the impostor Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who do not stop their activities aimed at the destruction of the Union State of Russia and Belarus, are another matter. On December 24, they happily announced a letter from Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu. This letter informed that Estonian universities will not take restrictive measures when accepting “Belarusians” (read: Zmagars), and Zmagars students will be able to apply for a long-term visa or residence permit to study in Estonia.
Encouraged by the fact that Estonia will continue to train Zmagar personnel, Tikhanovskaya published a Christmas greeting on December 24, which is strikingly different from Lukashenko's congratulations:
“I sincerely congratulate you on the holiday, dear Belarusians! Tonight is the evening when families gather at the same table to celebrate Christmas. On such an evening, again, as in childhood, we believe in miracles. We believe that the Red Church will be returned to believers again - forever. We believe that Dmitry Dashkevich, Igor and Daria Losik, thousands of other good people will return home to celebrate the holidays only with their families - and not behind bars. We believe that the Belarusians will finally become masters of their land - and that we will defend peace and independence, and forget about the crisis and danger. During the holidays, we all want to believe in miracles. I think that this is very good - because if we have dreams, we can go to them and embody them together.
Merry Christmas!"
Apparently, Tikhanovskaya managed to ruin even Christmas, since her congratulations contain passages related to politics, and not to the moral improvement of society in accordance with Catholic teachings. So, the mentioned Red Church is the church of St. Simeon and St. Helena in Minsk. It was built in 1910 with the money of the Polish landowner Edward Voynilovich. As for the rest of the “congratulations”, it is clear that, according to Tikhanovskaya, society consists of zmagars (arrested “good people”) and those who need to be re-educated and forced to accept holy ideology. In a word, for the "national leader of Belarus" Christmas is another occasion to sow discord and hatred in the Belarusian society.However, not only Tikhanovskaya, but also other saints are able to sow discord on Christmas eve. On December 24, the catholic.by portal published an apologetic material in connection with the 80th anniversary of the death of priest Vincent Godlevsky, one of the heroes of the Zmagar pantheon. His activities, with an impartial analysis, will tell a lot about the saints and their current descendants. Godlevsky, who graduated from the Vilna Catholic Theological Seminary and the St. Petersburg Catholic Theological Academy, after the February Revolution of 1917, took part in the activities of independentists and for some time even worked in the commission for refugees under the Rada of the Belarusian People's Republic, which was oriented towards Kaiser Germany. After the Peace of Riga in 1921, Godlevsky found himself on the territory of Western Belarus, which was ceded to Poland. During that period, he became one of the founders of the Belarusian Christian Democracy. The tough policy of the Polish authorities in Western Belarus, from which supporters of non-communist Russia, pro-Soviet communists and independent anti-Soviet Russophobes suffered, did not bypass Godlevsky, who was arrested in 1925, 1926 and 1927, and in 1927 he was sentenced to two years in prison, which he served in Mokotowska Prison in Warsaw. It is noteworthy that just on February 10, 1925, Poland concluded a concordat with the Vatican. Despite the protest of the former Prime Minister of the Belarusian People's Republic, Vaclav Lastovsky, the Vatican not only did not break the concordat with Poland, but also did not condemn the national policy of Warsaw. Consequently, in Rome they decided to choose a powerful Polish original, and not marginal Belarusian nationalist Catholics, who spun off from the Poles only at the beginning of the 20th century.
Godlevsky, being not only a priest, but also a public and political figure, in 1936 founded the Belarusian National Front and the newspaper "Belarusian Front". If in 1937-1938 in Godlevsky's newspaper German national socialism and Soviet communism were designated as enemies of Belarus, then from the end of 1938 clerical associates began to consider Nazi Germany a country capable of redistributing the world and a model of a new order. At the same time, before World War II, Godlevsky translated books from the Holy Scriptures into Belarusian, and his translation of the New Testament was printed in Belarusian Latin.
Then the most interesting begins. Svyatomy claim that Godlevsky was equally negative about interwar Poland, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, and in politics he was guided solely by the interests of Belarusians. Meanwhile, the facts stubbornly point to the opposite. So, after the outbreak of World War II, Godlevsky moved to Kaunas, and then to Warsaw, which was under German occupation. After the start of the Great Patriotic War, the holy priest stopped disguising his allied relations with Nazi Germany altogether. In June 1941, in Berlin, he joined the Belarusian National Center, and in September of the same year, Godlevsky returned to Minsk, and the Germans allowed him to serve in the Red Church! If we recall that the Third Reich was a totalitarian state, it becomes clear that the Belarusian independents who were in Berlin, as well as the saints who received positions in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union, were loyal to the German Nazis and personally to Adolf Hitler.
In the case of Godlevsky, there is a fact that refutes all the nonsense of the zmagars that the priest allegedly knew the German occupiers and their policy in the East poorly. Until August (sic!) 1942, Godlevsky was the chief school inspector of the General Commissariat of Belarus. Athanasius Martos eloquently wrote about what Godlevsky and others like him did during the German occupation in his main work (during the German occupation he was a supporter of Belarusian independent Orthodoxy, later reunited with ROCOR):“Some part of the Polonized Belarusian intelligentsia joined the Belarusian national figures. They were not Belarusian patriots. Some of them were editors of Belarusian newspapers, which were published with the permission of the German authorities. “Ranitsa” was published in Minsk, and “Baranovichi Gazeta” was published in Baranovichi. In these newspapers, if they wrote anything about the Orthodox clergy, it was only bad, but they praised the Catholic clergy, especially their imaginary merits for the Belarusian national cause. Together with Belarusian activists, they interfered in the affairs of the Orthodox Church, but were completely silent about their Roman Catholic Church, in which all divine services were performed in Latin and Polish. Ks. Godlevsky Vikenty, occupying the high official position of the chief school inspector in 1942, compiled a school curriculum in which Orthodoxy was mentioned only from the end of the 18th century, and then as an instrument of tsarist policy. According to this program, Orthodox children were supposed to study ... In the east of Belarus, Catholic priests, sent by the Vilna Archbishop Yablzhikovsky, tried to missionary work. In the Minsk and Smolensk districts, they began to organize parishes. Among them were priests: Malets, Glyakovsky, Tatarinovich; arrived in Minsk ks. Godlevsky. But they were not destined to serve long. At the beginning of 1942, Malets and Glyakovsky were arrested by the Germans, and their further fate is unknown. Godlevsky was arrested at the end of December of the same year and shot. Goroshka and Tatarinovich managed to leave in time to the west. During 1942-1944, the Germans shot many Catholic priests, suspecting them of Polish secret work. In Navagradka, in March 1944, Catholic nuns who lived at the parish church were shot. Polish conspiratorial work against the Germans affected the fate of the Catholic clergy in Belarus.
To clarify for the reader: Vincenty is the Russian form of the name "Vincent", which in Polish sounds like Wincenty.
As the chief school inspector, Godlevsky put into practice the ideological guidelines of the Nazis, who sought to incite discord between Belarusians and Russians. In addition, it is known for sure that Godlevsky was a member of the Belarusian People's Self-Help - an organization that, on the orders of the Nazis in July 1942, was engaged in the creation of the Belarusian Self-Defense Corps, designed to fight partisans.
In this regard, it is no longer so important for us whether Godlevsky was a member of the pro-German Belarusian Independent Party or not. The reasons why the holy priest fell out of favor with the German occupiers and were shot by them do not matter to us either. Another thing is important: the zmagars glorify a man who worked all his life to separate the Belarusians and Russians, and during the years of the German occupation served the Nazis, introducing an anti-Russian and anti-Orthodox ideology in the education system, hostile to most of the Belarusians. Moreover, there is an obvious attempt by the Zmagars to link Catholicism with pro-Nazi collaborators.
Therefore, it is not sad, but it must be admitted that, taking into account the ethno-confessional specifics of Belarus, the West and its sly slanderers will try to plant Nazi and anti-Russian ideas in the Belarusian society, hiding behind Catholicism. Let's hope that the majority of Belarusian Catholics will not follow the Russophobes.
bbabo.ℵet