When Belarus’s tiny, embattled community of Evangelicals and Protestant Christians first heard about the idea of holding a mass prayer service in the capital, Minsk, they were incredulous. The idea came from the Americans and included having famed preacher Franklin Graham fly in to lead the event.
“Belarusian churches thought they were crazy, that the US didn't understand the situation in Belarus. How can you apply for a 10,000-person event?” said Natallya Vasilevich, a member of a coalition of Belarusian religious groups called Christian Vision.
“We tried to explain [the situation] to the Americans, but they said, 'No, no, you can apply anyway.' When they applied, [authorities] laughed at them,” she told RFE/RL’s Belarus Service in an interview from Germany where she lives. “But suddenly permission came.”
If all goes according to organizers’ plans, hundreds, possibly thousands of devout Belarusians will gather this weekend for two days of prayer and music at one of Minsk’s largest indoor stadiums for a kind of event that hasn’t happened in years.
Ahead of the event, Graham met on May 15 with Belarus’s strongman leader Aleksandr Lukashenko, who welcomed him warmly, and asserted that 25 different religious faiths in Belarus “live, coexist, and interact peacefully.”
“Tomorrow, I will ask everyone present to stand up and offer a prayer for you as the leader,” Graham was quoted as saying by Belarusian state media.
A Pentecostal church in the western Brest region, in 2017.
The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association --the US-based entity founded by Franklin Graham's father, a renowned, politically influential preacher who died in 2018 -- did not respond to e-mails seeking comment.
Paval Sevyarynets, a former political prisoner, said it was a small miracle the event was going forward -- given the repression of Lukashenko’s government, and the all-out Russian invasion of Belarus’s neighbor Ukraine.
"The regime, the war -- and in Minsk there is an evangelical festival of thousands, where they will talk about faith, hope, and peace,” he told RFE/RL. “For all of Belarus, this is a powerful Christian breakthrough.”
'Call It A Bible Tea Party'
In Belarus, like in Russia, Ukraine, and elsewhere, Orthodox Christianity is the dominant faith.
Government statistics say up to 53 percent of the country’s 9.5 million people belong to the Belarusian Orthodox Church, though it’s unclear how many actually attend services regularly. Roman Catholics trail far behind; many have ties to Poland, where the Catholic Church is dominant.
Franklin Graham (left), shown speaking during President Donald Trump's January 2025 inauguration, is the son of Billy Graham, who gained worldwide renown for his preaching.
Protestants and evangelical denominations make up a tiny percentage, according to state statistics. As of 2024, there were 1,038 Protestant communities officially registered with authorities under state law; estimates for the actual number of believers range from several hundred to several thousands.
In his meeting with Graham, Lukashenko said there were 850 Protestant communities in the country.
The situation for Protestants in Belarus began to deteriorate in the late 1990s.
Over his more than three decades in power, Lukashenko has gradually wiped out civil society groups, rights activists, and independent media. Same for small religious denominations.
In 2002, the government passed a law mandating that all churches register with the authorities. The law, Vasilevich said, was aimed specifically at Protestant churches who exploded in numbers in the years after the Soviet collapse.
Local authorities took a dim view of the new churches popping up in traditionally Orthodox areas, said Hleb, a Protestant man who asked to be identified by a pseudonym for security reasons. When Protestants wanted to register a church, officials would try to dissuade them.
"'Why are you starting a church?’” Hleb recalled one official telling him. “’Call it a Bible tea party,’ she said to my face. 'It doesn't matter what documents you bring me; there’s an order from above not to register new churches’.”
SEE ALSO:
Nobel Laureate Byalyatski: Continued Pressure Needed For Political Prisoner Releases In BelarusThe law wasn’t strictly enforced until after 2020, when Lukashenko claimed victory in a disputed presidential election. Widespread allegations of fraud drew hundreds of thousands of people to protest across the country for weeks. Lukashenko’s government brutally cracked down, jailing thousands, and drawing international condemnation.
Following the crackdown, the government imposed more onerous registration requirements on churches, mainly Protestant. The law also gave special status to Orthodoxy, as well as the Catholic Church, Islam, and Judaism.
A separate law created a new criminal definition of “extremism” that could be used to shut down media organizations -- RFE/RL’s Belarus Service has been designated extremist -- as well as churches or any public organizations.
Christian Vision was designated extremist in 2025. So was Vyasna, the famed human rights group whose founder, Ales Byalyatski, was a co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022.
In one case that drew wider attention, members of the evangelical New Life church recorded a video condemning the police crackdown on protesters in the wake of the disputed election. The following year, authorities seized the building on Minsk’s outskirts, where the church held services, and changed the locks.
The church’s pastor was detained for several days in 2022, and in 2023, officials bulldozed the building entirely.
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Over the years, Lukashenko has been ostracized for human rights abuses but periodically embraced as an interlocutor with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In 2020, during the first administration of President Donald Trump, Mike Pompeo became the first US secretary of state to travel to Minsk in 26 years. The election fraud, and crackdown on protests later that year returned Lukashenko to pariah status.
After Trump was elected to a second term in 2024, his administration began quietly reestablishing contacts with Lukashenko’s government. Trump appointed lawyer John Coale to be his special envoy for Belarus.
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Over the past 16 months, Coale has traveled to Minsk, met Lukashenko –- and reportedly drank vodka with him -- and secured the release of dozens of political prisoners. The Trump administration, in return, has lifted sanctions on major state companies, whose revenues are badly needed by the Lukashenko government.
Hleb said that Belarusian Protestants had sought for Franklin Graham -- whose father Billy gained a worldwide following and who counseled several US presidents -- to visit Minsk for years, but the requests for permission were denied.
He said he wasn’t sure exactly why that decision was reversed, but he said it was likely at the “highest level.”
Asked about the background and timing of the decision to permit the Minsk religious gathering, Coale said in an e-mail to RFE/RL: “All I did was ask Lukashenko if Franklin could come and preach. He said yes.”
Coale did not respond to a follow-up e-mail seeking further comment.
Christianity Today, a religious publication founded by Billy Graham, said the Billy Graham association was the organizer of the event, and said Franklin Graham was scheduled to preach on the final two nights. More than 1,300 singers, as well as musicians from Belarus, Russia, and the United States, were expected to participate.
Christianity Today said Alyaksandr Rumak, Lukashenko’s top official for religious and ethnic affairs, was responsible for granting permission.
Rumak could not be reached for comment.
The evangelical New Life Church had its building on the outskirts of Minsk bulldozed by authorities.
Minsk Revival
It’s unclear how many people will show up to the weekend’s events. Christianity Today said organizers hope as many as 9,000 people could attend -- which would make it one of the largest Protestant religious gatherings in Belarus in a generation.
Some Belarusian Protestants have mixed feelings about the festival.
"We will have to praise Lukashenko, be hypocritical, and turn a blind eye to repression and the truth," Vasilevich told RFE/RL.
“Some are reacting with cynicism,” Hleb said. “Authorities are using religious believers...they are trying to show: 'we’re not as terrible as they are making us out to be.'”
“I think some believers understand that they are being used. But they have higher values; to bring the word of God to the people," he added.
"It’s possible that the authorities will deploy both law enforcement officers and [local officials] there,” Sevyarynets said, to monitor the crowds and gather information on attendees. “Well, let them hear about God, let them think about how they can repent.”