Looking back at bulldozed church in Belarus
07-03-2025
Eastern Europe
William Immink, CNE.news
New Life Church in Minsk, Belarus, was demolished by national authorities in 2023. Photo screenshot from Pastor Vyacheslav Goncharenko’s video message
Eastern Europe
Two years ago, bulldozers flattened the church building where Matvey and his wife went. Now, the field where the church once stood lays empty on the outskirts of Minsk, Belarus.
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"Bulldozers came and flattened my church," Matvey* says. At the same time, he points his finger towards a field covered with snow and surrounded by several pine trees. On the left and the right are modern-day copies of Soviet-era flat blocks made of grey concrete panels. The place looks rather gloomy. It is as if there never was a church here.
This place once was the homestead of a vibrant Christian community of Pentecostals. The church that once stood here was a lively church with far more meetings than only the Sunday morning service. Around two thousand people were part of this church called 'New Life', but the Belarusian government ended it.
Pastor
The pastor of 'New Life', pastor Vyacheslav Goncharenko, saw his church being razed to the ground in August 2023 by the Minsk authorities. The church, founded in 1992, bought a farm in Minsk in 2002 and converted it into a thriving church building. Life was never easy for the Pentecostal congregation, but they always stayed afloat.
The problems became too big to handle when pastor Vyacheslav Goncharenko started prayer events for the situation in Ukraine. Logically, the Lukashenko administration began to see Protestant Christians as 'anti-Russian' and 'pro-Western'. Ultimately, everything 'New Life' tried to do was labelled 'extremist' by the courts.
Some Christian critics in Minsk say that Goncharenko should not have spoken out against the government. One brother, Leonid, says, "We must pray for the government, not curse it". Christians from other churches try to distance themselves from 'New Life' and consequently take a more patriotic stance.
Generations
Matvey has been a Christian all his life, a Pentecostal in heart and soul. As the 28-year-old Belarusian knows, his great-grandfather was already a churchgoer. Even when the leadership of the Soviet Union opposed any form of religion, they all attended church. And just like in Soviet times, going to church is not that easy in Belarus today.
According to Matvey, this is not the case for most of the two thousand members who once registered at 'New Life'. Most of them were there just for the party, he says. "We became too comfortable. Church was not about pleasing God but pleasing ourselves. "Maybe this was God teaching us something. "A lot of churchgoers, especially young people, were not ready for persecution and fell away.
Even though the bulldozers flattened the church, this did not change the faith of the young family's husband and father. Now, he is part of a home fellowship. Believers meet each other on Sundays in the gloomy, grey, flat buildings that are ever so warm and cosy from the inside. These continue to be where they pray, sing and read the Bible together.
Matvey is not his real name. CNE knows his real name.
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