Christian Vision for Belarus: Faith Under Pressure, Solidarity in Action

When religious language becomes a battlefield

Since 2020, Belarus has been living through a prolonged social and political crisis that has reshaped public life, fractured communities, and put extraordinary pressure on religious actors. Since 2022, Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine has added further moral urgency: Belarus has become deeply dependent on Russia and complicit in the war.

In this context, the public role of churches has been ambiguous. Individual Christians — clergy and laity — have shown courage: praying in the streets, supporting the persecuted, documenting abuses, and opposing violence and lawlessness.

Yet church institutions have rarely been publicly recognizable as places of truth-telling, peacebuilding, and moral leadership. In the first weeks of the 2020 protests, parts of the church establishment showed hesitation and occasional engagement — gestures that suggested the possibility of a clearer stance. But this did not last. As repression intensified and authoritarian power consolidated, institutional churches largely withdrew from public responsibility and, in many cases, moved toward accommodation and support. In the worst cases, religious language has been used to legitimize authoritarian rule and later the war.

Christian Vision for Belarus emerged in this space — where faith had to become reflection and action.

Faith and politics: two identities in constructive tension

Two commitments shaped my early adulthood. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, I became involved both in Belarus’s democratic movement and in the Orthodox Church. I chose to study law and political science because I wanted to understand the mechanics of power and the architecture of democracy — how institutions are built, how they endure, and how they fail; and how to do politics professionally and effectively, contributing to democratic transformation in my country. At the same time, I became deeply rooted in Orthodox theology — fascinated by liturgy, patristics, and Orthodox anthropology.

Very early I encountered a deep contradiction. Despite the spiritual treasures of Orthodox tradition, the Belarusian Orthodox Church under the Moscow Patriarchate often promoted a worldview shaped by conspiracy thinking, radical nationalism, anti-Western and antisemitic narratives, gender inequality, and admiration for authoritarian leaders. I began writing publicly about these tensions, launched my own website, and later pursued theological studies so that my critique would be informed and constructive. My academic work — first in political science and then in theology — became an attempt to deconstruct ideological distortions and articulate an alternative Christian response grounded in dignity, freedom, justice, democracy, and human rights.

2020: When prayer stepped into public space

When peaceful demonstrations began in 2020, Christians took to the streets with icons, Bibles, and rosaries, organizing ecumenical prayers. They prayed, sang, and publicly called for an end to violence. These protests were often described as “a revolution with a female face”: courageous, tender, radically nonviolent. They shaped a new moral imaginary for Belarus — one centered on dignity, compassion, and hope.

But moral strength was not enough to stop the regime. Repression expanded dramatically: thousands were imprisoned, hundreds of thousands fled, and Belarus became even more dependent on Russia. The scale of violence created a sense of moral collapse — and it became clear that Christian witness could not remain only symbolic. It needed structure, analysis, memory, and international solidarity.

Christian Vision

The ecumenical group Christian Vision was created out of the necessity to articulate Christian responsibility under repression, provide theological grounding for truth and nonviolence, document persecution,[1] support victims, and place Belarus on the global Christian agenda — among other things through a dedicated track of religious diplomacy with churches, ecumenical networks, and faith-based institutions.

In February 2022, as Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, our work expanded decisively. The response to the war became our primary focus through the project Christians Against War[2]. We try to hold together peace ethics and responsibility ethics: supporting dialogue and peacemaking, while also recognizing the moral legitimacy of self-defense against armed aggression.

On April 1, 2025, the Belarusian KGB labelled Christian Vision an “extremist formation.” In Belarus today, this label typically means only one thing: you spoke against violence.

What holds us together — even when we disagree

Christian Vision unites Orthodox, Roman Catholics, Greek Catholics, and Protestants. Dispersion adds another layer. Our members are scattered across Europe and North America — Lithuania, Poland, Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, the UK, Greece, Ukraine, the United States, and Belarus. Since 2020, we have met in person as a group only twice. This slows coordination, weakens communal life, and increases burnout.

This diversity is still more strength than weakness. We remain diverse without falling apart. Christian Vision differs on many questions, yet we share a commitment to human dignity, truth, responsibility, and peace. In Christian Vision we learn from one another, share theological perspectives, and work together in common witness and diakonia. A key principle is solidarity across confessions: when Protestants are attacked, Orthodox and Catholics speak first. And when critique of a particular church is needed, it is written primarily by members of that church to reduce bias and avoid confessional weaponization.

One of our cornerstones is expertise. Our network includes theologians, historians, diplomats, lawyers, human rights experts, analysts, and journalists. This competence matters, because credibility matters: without disciplined documentation and careful analysis, Christian language can become emotional protest rather than public witness.

Finally, women’s leadership has shaped our public face. Christian Vision includes clergy, and at one point even included a bishop, but women have played a crucial role not only as activists, but as theologians, analysts, and leaders. Today the main public representatives of Christian Vision are largely lay women — and their voices are heard by bishops, pastors, and international partners.

Good Samaritan: from victimhood to agency

Christian Vision emerged from a moment of profound moral rupture. It seeks to hold together faith and responsibility, prayer and action, peace and justice — and to sustain an ecumenical community where Christians support one another across confessional boundaries, speak honestly, and try to respond to violence without losing dignity. This work also reshaped how we imagined Christian identity. In 2020, as repression escalated, Belarusian protest lived within one biblical image: the wounded traveler in the parable of the Good Samaritan — beaten, robbed, left by the roadside, crying: “Have mercy — do not pass by.” It was a truthful image, but it also risked fixing us primarily as victims.

With the theological assistance of Christian Vision, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya — President-elect of Belarus — became the first politician to respond publicly to Pope Francis’s encyclical Fratelli Tutti, describing Belarusians as that traveler from Jerusalem to Jericho: robbed of votes and truth, beaten and bloodied, left helpless on prison floors, and appealing to the world not to pass by on the other side.[3] Since the full-scale war in Ukraine started, our perception has shifted. We are not only the ones abandoned on the roadside; we are also called to become the Good Samaritan for neighbors living through war — to see wounds, take responsibility, act, and contribute to healing. Painful as this transformation has been, it has also been empowering, shaping Christian Vision as a living example of how faith communities respond to crisis — not by withdrawal, but by responsibility, honesty, and unity.

Natallia Vasilevich

[1] https://belarus2020.churchby.info/

[2] https://shaltnotkill.info/

[3] Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, “Fraternal Society: A Vision For a New Belarus”. Letter to the Holy Father Francis, Bishop and Pope of Rome, inspired by his new encyclical Fratelli Tutti, 14.11.2020, https://tsikhanouskaya.org/en/news/f46df99254de4dd.html