Speech of Member of the Sejm Miatla on the seizure of the Viasielusa church from the Orthodox

Honourable Sejm! The case of the Orthodox church in Viasielusa is not an isolated case of the seizure of churches from the Orthodox; we have hundreds of similar cases. All the church cases taken together characterize well the attitude of the Polish Government toward religious minorities, and also the atmosphere that has been created thanks to this attitude. Looking at such cases, one does not know what to marvel at more: the patience of the Belarusian and Ukrainian peoples, or the stubbornness of a government deprived of all reason, which is determined to prove that it has citizens of two sorts, and that the constitution applies only to the first sort.

The Viasielusa church is in the Dunilavichy county, in the Vilnia region. The church has 2600 permanent parishioners, and 700 more attached from the Stary Miadzel parish, where the church has also been taken away, so it has more than 3300 souls in all. The said church was built in 1728 and is designated in all the acts as Greek-Orthodox; at some time it was Uniate, and later, together with the whole parish, it went over to Orthodoxy again. In the nearest vicinity of the Viasielusa church there are several Roman Catholic churches: in Dunilavichy, Stary Miadzel, Hruzdova, Zhosna. They can not only satisfy the needs of the local Roman Catholic population, but are even superfluous, since, for example, the church in Zhosna, 2 kilometres from Viasieluka, stands idle. However that may be, the local Roman Catholic and Orthodox population has so far lived in harmony and would never have started this affair, which was started by various newcomers and local Polish landowners for purposes of Polonization, and their efforts were supported by the government authorities. The result of these efforts is that by order of the Ministry of Religious Denominations and Public Education of 14 December 1923 the Orthodox church in the village of Viasielusa has been given to the Catholic people. The grounds for this order given by the Ministry are: 1) that this church was in its time Greek-Uniate; 2) that it was taken from the Uniates in 1831–34; 3) that the church is not needed by the Orthodox, and 4) that the church is absolutely needed by the Roman Catholic population, which supposedly has no church of its own. For this reason a delegation of parishioners, in the presence of Member of the Sejm Kakhanovich and Senator Bahdanovich, turned to the Ministry of Religious Denominations with a protest against the seizure of this church from the Orthodox, grounding the protest on the following: 1) there is no statute or other law on which this action could be based; 2) that according to the order of the Commissioner of the Eastern Lands of 22 October 1919 all Greek-Uniate churches in the possession of the Orthodox are not subject to seizure; 3) that all the grounds for this action, apart from the fact that the church was in its time Greek-Uniate, are improper and do not correspond to the actual state of affairs, that all the data on which the Ministry's decision is based, namely concerning the size of the Orthodox and Roman Catholic population, the distance of the church from neighbouring churches and chapels, the historical fortunes of this church, etc., are completely contrary to the truth, because of which the Minister was misled; 4) that together with the church the land, kitchen garden and buildings are to be taken, among which there are some that are the personal property of the parish priest; 5) that the inquiry in this matter was conducted tendentiously, only among the Roman Catholic people; 6) that the parishioners can prove the truthfulness of their data by documents 200 years old and more, which are kept at the church and in the consistory. They asked that the Minister: 1) re-examine this matter, taking into account the data presented by the Orthodox, and 2) postpone the actual seizure of the church until this matter has been re-examined. The Director of the Department of Religious Denominations, Mr. Piekarski, who received the delegation on behalf of and on the instructions of the Minister, promised to fulfil this request, to examine the matter anew, and in the meantime, since the deadline for seizing the church was approaching in 4–5 days, to order by telegram that the seizure of the church be held back. Despite this, no such order was given, and the church was seized on 12 February of this year. When the church was seized, church articles were taken, namely some icons, bells, etc. Together with the church, the church land was seized, and buildings that are the personal property of the Orthodox parish priest. Part of the house in which this priest lived was taken for the Roman Catholic priest, with threats that the Orthodox priest would soon be evicted from his quarters.

The above-mentioned circumstances show that the government's statement about an early transfer of the church in no way justifies its actions. If the government itself, in the person of its representative Mr. Piekarski, underestimating the trust of the people, is not ashamed to break its word, then we ask the Sejm not to undermine its own dignity by its decision, and we ask for a very small thing, a grain of justice: the appointment of a Sejm commission to examine the matter of the seizure of the Orthodox church in Viasielusa. Will even this justice be denied the Belarusian people? We ask for recognition of the urgency of the motion.

Urgency rejected.