Natallia Vasilevich (Belarus) in CNE podcast: “Extremist” – but what does that even mean?
Natallia Vasilevich. Photo Marcello Schneider, WCC
European Union
In a new episode of the CNE podcast, Natallia Vasilevich shares this fascinating story. The government of Belarus has labelled her organisation, Christian Vision, as extremist. That sounds chilling, but nobody knows what it means.
Speaking with host Evert van Vlastuin, Vasilevich reveals how this vague and dangerous label turns everyday contact into a risk: “Anyone who talks to someone labelled extremist can be called an extremist too.”
The organisation Christian Vision was a spontaneous initiative during the protests against President Lukashenko’s fraudulent election in 2020. It is a grassroots movement of mainly Orthodox believers offering prayer and resistance, where official church voices stayed silent. “The Catholics were very active against the regime. The Orthodox not.”
In the podcast, Vasilevich explains the deep rift between the official Orthodox Church in Belarus, which is aligned with the Moscow Patriarchate and supportive of the war in Ukraine, and her group, which stands openly with Ukraine. What does that mean for believers caught in the middle?
She lives in Germany and is finishing a PhD dissertation at Bonn University. However, she is not sure whether she can return to Belarus after that.
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