Belarusian Orthodox Church

The Belarusian Orthodox Church ( Belarusian Exarchate even the Moscow Patriarchate ) is an Orthodox church located in Minsk. It is headed by a Metropolitan, which in turn is subordinate to the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow.

History

Since the 16th century, a significant proportion of the population of what was then dominated by the country of Poland in 1595 caused by the Union of Brest the Uniate church belonged to, subordinate to the Pope, but their services according to so-called " Byzantine ", ie actually Orthodox rite celebrating. After connecting the Belarusian territory to the Russian empire were - especially in the early 19th century - has taken steps to re- suspension of the Union by the state as the Russian Orthodox Church, which also led to some success: returned the majority of the Uniates - more or less voluntarily - back to orthodoxy, others took to the Roman Catholic ( " Latin" ) rite. In the Soviet Union, the Union was repealed entirely in 1948 and survives today only a small community of Uniates in Belarus. The Belarusian Orthodox Church was founded in 1991 as an independent organization from the previous dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church in the former Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic in order to take account of the fact that Belarus became an independent from Russia State but still has close ties to Russia maintains. Since the Concordat of 2003, the Belarusian Orthodox Church by the State most supported denomination in Belarus dar.