Christianity in Belarus
The majority of the population of Belarus is Eastern Orthodox. The majority of Orthodox Christians in Belarus belong to the Belarusian Orthodox Church, which remains a unit of the Russian Orthodox Church. There is a Belarusian Autocephalous Orthodox Church which is not officially registered.
There are about 1.7 million Catholics in the country (around 17% of the total population). The Roman Catholic archdiocese is the archdiocese Minsk and Mahiliou. The other dioceses are Hrodna, Pinsk and Vitsebsk.
Home worship is prohibited in Belarus.
Several Greek Catholic as well as several Protestant churches have been prohibited to register with official authority. There are more than 500,000 Protestants in Belarus (5% of the population).
Baptists affiliated to the Baptist World Alliance number more than 11000 in 1998. There were 170 Pentecostal congregations in 1993. Lutherans belong to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Central Asia. There was a hungerstrike as a reaction to limitation of Christian religious liberty.
There is a women's Christian-Democratic Movement of Belarus and the political party Belarusian Christian Democracy, which continues the traditions of Belarusian Christian Democrats of the early 20th century but is being refused a registration by the authorities.
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