The Vatican announced Monday a major leadership transition in a small but historically significant community within the Catholic Church in Belarus.
The Holy See press office said Sept. 14 that Pope Leo XIV had accepted the resignation of 77-year-old Archimandrite Jan Sergiusz Gajek, M.I.C., as head of the apostolic administration for Byzantine Rite Catholics in Belarus.
It added that the pope had appointed Fr. Liavoncij Tumouski, M.S.U., 53, as Gajek’s successor.
Who are the Byzantine Rite Catholics of Belarus? And what’s the significance of the leadership change?
Who are Belarus’ Byzantine Rite Catholics?
The Belarusian Greek Catholic Church is one of the smallest of the 23 Eastern Catholic Churches in full communion with Rome. It has around 5,000 members in the Eastern European nation of Belarus, as well as thousands more living in the diaspora.
Byzantine Rite Catholicism has deep historical roots in Belarus. But the community today is a minority within a minority. Most of the country’s roughly 9 million people identify as Eastern Orthodox. Fewer than 10% of Belarusians are Catholics and most belong to the Latin Catholic Church.
The estimate of 5,000 Byzantine Rite Catholics in Belarus was provided by the Holy See press office in 2023, when Pope Francis created a new structure known as the Apostolic Administration for Faithful of Byzantine Rite in Belarus.
The Argentine pope named Archimandrite Gajek as the apostolic administrator, or head, of the new jurisdiction. Gajek, a Polish-born member of the Marian Fathers, had served as apostolic visitor to Byzantine Rite Catholics in Belarus since 1993, two years after the country gained independence from the Soviet Union.
At the time of its creation, the apostolic administration comprised 16 parishes, served by 16 priests and three deacons, with four seminarians in formation.
The erection of an apostolic administration was seen as a way of strengthening the pastoral structures supporting Byzantine Rite Catholic life in Belarus. There was expectation that the apostolic administration might ultimately be upgraded to the status of an eparchy, or diocese, led by a bishop, rather than an archimandrite (a senior priest).
But the structure is arguably more fragile today than it was when it was established in March 2023. In December that year, Belarus’ long-serving authoritarian leader Aleksandr Lukashenko signed a new law requiring religious organizations to re-register with the state.
When the law came into force in July 2024, the 16 Byzantine Rite Catholic parishes were required to seek re-registration within a year.
In 2025, authorities in the southwestern city of Brest rejected the re-registration of the three parishes in the region and applied to the courts to liquidate the structures. In April 2026, the Supreme Court of Belarus denied an appeal against the decision.
The liquidation orders meant the three communities could no longer legally operate as registered religious organizations. Aside from the immediate impact on pastoral life, the orders held a symbolic significance.
The Belarusian Greek Catholic Church traces its history to the Union of Brest in 1595-96, when Eastern Orthodox communities in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth united with Rome while preserving their liturgical practices.
The liquidation orders therefore targeted the Belarusian Greek Catholic Church’s institutional structures in a region linked to its foundations.
Belarusian media reported in June 2026 that the authorities had denied the re-registration application of a fourth Byzantine Rite parish, in the city of Orsha in the northeastern Vitebsk region. This meant that the number of registered parishes had fallen by a quarter, from 16 to 12.
The tightening of restrictions on religious communities followed the 2020 Belarusian presidential election, in which Lukashenko controversially claimed victory amid widespread allegations of electoral fraud. When mass protests appeared to threaten his decades-long rule, Lukashenko turned to neighboring Russia for help. Moscow’s assistance stabilized the Lukashenko regime, while further strengthening Russia’s influence over Belarus.
The country’s links to Moscow extend to the ecclesiastical realm. The Belarusian Orthodox Church, to which the majority of the population belong, is under the aegis of the Russian Orthodox Church, which is closely associated with the Russian state.
Russian authorities historically sought to suppress Greek Catholicism, which offers an alternative Byzantine identity, in communion with Rome and outside of Moscow’s ecclesiastical jurisdiction. That history is relevant in today’s Belarus, given its increasing political and ideological alignment with Moscow.
That said, the apostolic administration for Byzantine Rite Catholics is not the only institution to feel the Belarusian authorities’ tightening grip.
At least 17 Polish-born priests serving the Latin Catholic community have been refused state permits to continue serving in the country, making the provision of pastoral care increasingly difficult, especially in the eastern region.
Even clergy belonging to the Moscow Patriarchate-linked Belarusian Orthodox Church have faced repression for expressing sympathy for pro-democracy protesters.
What’s the significance of the change?
The most notable biographical difference between Archimandrite Jan Sergiusz Gajek, the outgoing head of the apostolic administration for Byzantine Rite Catholics in Belarus, and his successor, Fr. Liavoncij Tumouski, is nationality.
Gajek was born in Łyszkowice, central Poland, while Tumouski’s place of birth is Polotsk, in Belarus’ Vitebsk region. In an environment in which Polish-born Catholic clergy are being required to leave Belarusian parishes after decades of service, this is not a mere detail.
Pope Leo XIV’s choice of Tumouski was made during the tenure of Archbishop Ignazio Ceffalia, the apostolic nuncio in Belarus since 2025. Ceffalia belongs to another of the 23 Eastern Catholic Churches, the Italo-Albanian Catholic Church, which may have given him particular insight into the needs of Byzantine Rite Catholics in Belarus.
At 53, Tumouski could have a good two decades in charge of the apostolic administration. The Studite monk brings considerable experience. He has served as the prior of a monastery in Polotsk (2003-2008) and vice dean of the parishes of the Belarusian Greek Catholic Church (2004-2006). His most recent post, held since 2022, was head of pastoral care of the Belarusian Greek Catholic Church in Poland.
Tumouski faces a delicate task as apostolic administrator. He must ensure that Catholic life flourishes in the successfully re-registered parishes, while finding creative ways of sustaining communities whose parishes have lost their legal registration. To do that, he will need to maintain an effective working relationship with the authorities. It would make sense, too, to try to nurture ties with the majority Orthodox Church.
It would also be helpful to maintain close links with the Latin Catholic Church, drawing on the larger community’s resources where possible while preserving the Belarusian Greek Catholic Church’s distinctive identity.
For Byzantine Catholics in Belarus, Tumouski’s nomination marks a generational change. Gajek has led the community for more than three decades, since his appointment as apostolic visitor by Pope John Paul II in 1993. Now he is passing the responsibility to a younger man, who is called to build on Gajek’s legacy and encourage new expressions of Byzantine Rite Catholicism within parameters tightly defined by the state.