5. Beginning of the Apostolate

The war brought a considerable number of Belarusians to Italy. Many of these, as former Polish citizens, were serving in the ranks of the Polish army. Others began arriving as refugees soon after the cessation of hostilities in May 1945.

Among the new arrivals in Rome in 1945 were two Belarusian Catholic priests. One of them, Father Peter Tatarynovich (1896-1978) was a priest of the Roman rite. Ordained in 1921, he had worked in various parishes of the Pinsk diocese. A friend of Father Adam Stankievich, he had been a regular contributor to Chryscijanskaja dumka and author of several books. As has been already noted, during the war Tatarynovich was pastor to the Belarusian community in Warsaw. In 1944, with the approach of the Soviet troops, he and most of his flock abandoned that city and headed West. The end of the war found him in Germany. In the autumn of 1945 Tatarynovich arrived in Rome, where, despite his age (he was 49) he enrolled in the Pontifical Oriental Institute. In 1949 he received a Doctor's degree for a thesis on the spiritual teaching of the 12th century Belarusian saint, Cyril, bishop of Turau. He was to remain in the Eternal City for the rest of his life.

The second arrival was a priest of the Byzantine rite, Father Leo Haroshka (1911-1977). Unlike other Belarusian priests, he had had the good fortune of receiving his secondary education at the Belarusian High School ("himnaziia") in Navahradak, before it was closed by the Polish authorities. After finishing school he decided to dedicate his life to the restoration of the Belarusian Greek Catholic ("Uniate") Church which had been suppressed by the Russians in 1839. In 1931 he began his training for priesthood at the Ukrainian Seminary in L'viv, where he was accepted by Metroplitan Andrew Sheptycky. After his priestly ordination in 1937 he had been working in the Pinsk Diocese. His first appointment was at Stoupcy, a frontier town between the Polish Republic and the Soviet Union. In May 1939 he was expelled from there by the Polish authorities, who considered him a danger to the security of the Polish State. With the outbreak of war in September 1939 and the fall of Poland, Metropolitan Sheptycky established a Greek Catholic Exarchate for Belarus, which in 1941 was reluctantly approved by Rome. The Exarch was Father Anthony Niemantsevich, who appointed Father Haroshka second councillor of the Exarchate. After the arrest of Niemantsevich by the Germans in July 1942 and his subsequent death in prison, the responsibility for the exarchate fell on Father Haroshka. He was also very active in the field of education. As head of the Belarusian Medical School in Baranavichy  he was arrested in 1943 when he thwarted the plans of the Germans to round up the students and send them to Germany as forced labourers. The end of the war found him a refugee in Germany. From there he wrote to Rome to the Congregation for the Eastern Churches, reporting on the state of the Greek Catholic Church in Belarus, and demanded what was to be done to help Belarusian Greek Catholics at home and in exile. Having received no reply, Haroshka on his own initiative and without asking anyone's permission, made his way to Rome and presented himself in person to the Congregation for the Eastern Churches. This time he was noticed. He was given accommodation at the Russicum at the expense of the Congregation. By the end of the year Haroshka, with the blessing of the Congregation, had started work on the prayer book for the faithful Bozhym shliakham  (On God's way) which appeared early in 1946. It so happened that the same year 1946 marked 350th anniversary of the Union of Brest of 1596, when the Orthodox Church in Belarus and Ukraine was united with the Holy See. To mark this occasion Pope Pius XII issued on 25 Decemeber 1945 an Encyclical Letter "Orientales omnes". Father Haroshka persuaded the Congregation of the necessity of translating it into Belarusian. Moreover he argued that, taking into account the changed historical circumstances, the term "Rutheni" in the encyclical should be translated as "Belarusians and Ukrainians". The church authorities hesitated at first but finally agreed with Father Haroshka's arguments. This was a small but significant victory. There were several Belarusian priests and students before Father Haroshka in Rome, but not one of them had made any effort to get the Church authorities to recognise Belarus as a separate nation with its own particular needs and aspirations. It was Father Haroshka who put Belarus firmly on the ecclesiastical map.

Father Sipovich had for seven years been cut off from anything Belarusian, and for him the arrival of two priests of a different background, with no connection with Druia or Vilna, and fresh from pastoral work among Belarusians, must have been a revelation. It added a new dimension to his understanding of the Belarusian problem both in its ecclesiastical and national aspects. However his first impression of them was rather curious. During his annual retreat on 20-28 September 1945 he made the following resolutions: "Prudently maintain contacts for the good of the Belarusian cause, especially for the good of the Holy Church in Belarus. Be tactful and careful with Fr P(eter) T(atarynovich) who has many talents from God, but is no longer young, lacks courage and initiative. Be cautious in relations with Poles, and try to involve gradually (in work) Fr L(eo) H(aroshka)". As it happened, Father Haroshka was "involved" from the very beginning and had no need of prompting or encouraging from anybody. The same could be said about Father Tatarynovich who, despite his 49 years and more than twenty years interval since he left the seminary, had had the courage to resume the studies. When he arrived in Rome, he was seriously ill and did much of his writing lying in bed. While working on his doctoral thesis he found time to translate into Belarusian Henryk Sienkiewicz's famous novel Quo vadis (finished in 1947, but published only in 1956), and to prepare a new edition of the prayer book for the faithful of the Roman rite Holas dushy (Voice of the soul), published early in 1949. In 1950 Father Tatarynovich started a religious journal Znic (The Torch) which he edited single-handedly for the next quarter of a century. Also in 1950 thanks to his efforts the Vatican Radio began broadcasts in the Belarusian language. Those were hardly achievements of a man who was lacking courage and initiative. Fortunately Father Sipovich later modified his somewhat hasty opinion, which was due perhaps to a lack of experience rather than to anything else.

The war was over, but what followed could be hardly called peace. The world was split into two hostile camps, eyeing each other with suspicion and mistrust, careful at the same time not to do anything which might make the "cold war" hot again: the memory of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima was still fresh in everybody's mind. Between the two camps hung the "iron curtain" which prevented any normal flow of news and communication. In this confrontational situation Belarus, as part of the Soviet Union, found itself in the Moscow-controlled Communist camp, with its totalitarian regime, disregard of basic human rights and suppression of religion. Those Belarusians who as a result of the war found themselves west of the "Iron curtain", could not go back to their native country. The problem before them was not only how to survive, but also how to retain their national identity and make Belarus and its plight known in the free world.

One of the first tasks confronting the three priests was to establish contact with Belarusians in Italy. About 2000 Belarusians were serving in the Polish armed forces. Many of them used to come to Rome on leave individually or in groups. Father Sipovich was always willing to act as guide to groups of  soldiers and, while showing them the sights of Eternal City, would delicately inquire whether there were any Belarusians among them... Many valuable contacts were made in this way, and the news of a Belarusian priest spread throughout all units of the Polish armed forces. Apart from the soldiers there was also an unspecified number of Belarusian refugees scattered in various refugee camps, such as Bologna, Modena, Naples, Barletta-Trani, Galatone. There were also a few students in Rome. Visits to the camps were arranged. The material situation of the refugees and students was not very good, and Belarusian soldiers often came to the aid of their less fortunate compatriots, generally through the Belarusian Relief Committee (Comitato Caritativo Biancoruteno) which was established in Rome under the chairmanship of Father Haroshka.

There were also meetings in Rome. One of the earliest took place on 3 November 1945. at which  Father Haroshka read a paper about problems of religious life among Belarusians at home and in exile; a member of the Polish armed Forces Victor Siankievich spoke about the fate of Belarusian soldiers who were obliged to serve in foreign armies; and Father Tatarynovich read a chapter from his translation of Henryk Sienkiewicz's Quo Vadis .

By the middle of 1946 it was becoming clear that the Belarusians' stay in Italy was temporary, as there were no conditions for permanent settlement. The three Belarusian priests had to face the problem of what to do next. One country which had a comparatively large group of Belarusians was France, where "Khaurus", a Belarusian organisation with its own bulletin  and library etc had been in existence since 1932. During the war its chairman, Liavon Rydleuski, had taken part in the French resistance. As soon as the war was over, "Khaurus" resumed its activities. Also in Paris lived Mikola Abramtchyk, president of the Belarusian National Rada (Council) in Exile. Both Father Haroshka and Sipovich were in touch with him soon after the end of the war. As early as September 1945 he and Rydleuski made the first request for a Belarusian priest of the Byzantine rite in France. Father Tatarynovich belonged to the Roman rite, and in any case he had only just began his studies at the Oriental Institute. Sipovich had still to obtain his doctorate. There remained Father Leo Haroshka. The Oriental Congregation agreed, and by 24 October 1946 he was already in Paris. Thus the first Belarusian Catholic Mission to be officially approved by the Vatican was established.

Before leaving Rome Father Haroshka wrote on 8 October 1946 to the Oriental Congregation , requesting that Father Sipovich should be sent to Great Britain as soon as was practically possible. Britain was the country with the potentially largest Belarusian community. First of all there were numerous Belarusians who had served in the ranks of the Polish Army  under the general British command. These were all to be transferred during the course of 1946 from Italy to Great Britain and, after demobilisation, given the opportunity for permanent settlement there. Their number soon was to be swelled by the arrival from Germany of displaced persons under the  European Voluntary Workers scheme. Obviously there was a need for a priest there. This problem was the subject of discussion at meetings in Rome with Belarusian members of the Polish armed forces. One of them was Dr Vincent Zhuk-Hryshkievich, a historian well known in the pre-war Belarusian community in Vilna. He had been arrested by the communists in 1939. In 1941, as a Polish national, he was released and allowed to join the Polish army which was then being formed in the Soviet Union, from where, via Iran and Middle East, it reached Italy early in 1944. Towards the end of the war the Polish Command organised a number of high schools to give soldiers the opportunity to finish their secondary education, which had been interrupted by the war. Zhuk-Hryshkievich taught history at one such school in Modena. It so happened that there was a number of Belarusian students there who formed the nucleus of a Belarusian organisation. Soon after arriving to Britain Zhuk-Hryshkevich and a group of Belarusians met on 22 September 1946 in London and decided to found an Association of Belarusians (or, as they were called then, Whiteruthenians) in Great Britain which exists to this day. Zhuk-Hryshkievich was the Association's first chairman, and the secretary was one of the students, Victor Siankievich.

After the succesful defence of his doctoral thesis on 19 December there was nothing to keep Father Sipovich in Rome. On 1 January 1947 the Association of Belarusians in Great Britain wrote to Buchys and to the Congregation for the Eastern Churches, asking them to send Father Sipovich to England. Buchys initially ignored the letter. On 22 January Sipovich had an audience at the Oriental Congregation, at which he raised the question of his going to Great Britain. At the Congregation they promised to write about it to Buchys, which they did two days later, on 24 January. On receiving the letter from the Congregation, Buchys, ever obsequious before higher authorities, immediately changed his mind and gave his consent. He even wrote, or at least signed, a gracious letter in idiosyncratic Belarusian to the Association of Belarusians in Great Britain.

Before going to Britain, there were still a few things to do in Rome. Soon after his arrival in Paris, Father Haroshka held a consultation with members of the Belarusian community there. It was decided to send a delegation to Rome. Two persons were chosen: Father Francis Charniauski and Liavon Rydleuski. Father Sipovich was in charge of the delegation's programme in Rome. It was a success. Not only did the delegates have talks in the Vatican Secretariate of State and the Congregation for the Eastern Churches, but on 8 November they, accompanied by Fathers Tatarynovich and Sipovich, were received in private audience by Pope Pius XII. The delegates asked the Holy Father for a Belarusian bishop and help in training new priests. This was the first time that the Pope had received a Belarusian delegation as such. Belarusians had been received by the Pope before, e.g. Abrantovich in 1928 and Tsikota in 1935, but for reasons which had nothing to do with Belarus.

Less succesful was the attempt to solve the problem of ex-Druia Belarusian Marian Fathers and clerics who were in Poland. With Belarus firmly in Communist hands, there was no hope of them returning to Druia. Father Haroshka wrote at least twice to Buchys, asking him to let the Belarusian Fathers come to the West (Germany, Denmark, France), where there were large communities of Belarusian refugees without priests. He even suggested that those working in Harbin should be brought back to Europe. He received no reply.

On 22 December Father Sipovich wrote a letter to Buchys saying that there was an imbalance between the work done by Belarusian Marians in Poland, and the Polish Marians who came in their place to Druia. To put the balance right Sipovich made a few modest suggestions, namely that some young Belarusian Marian priests be allowed to come to Rome and given the opportunity to receive a proper academic theological education, while the others should be given the chance to do the same at Warsaw University. The letter caused a stir. It was discussed at a meeting of the General Council on 14 January 1947. Father Mroczek, a Pole, suggested that it should be removed from the files, "ascribing certain inconvenient written passages and words to youthful temperament (adscribendo aliqua inconvenientia scriptorum et verborum iuvenili temperamento)". His proposal was rejected, and on 22 January he wrote a letter to Buchys, in which he tried to prove that what Belarusians received was in excess of their contribution to the work of the Polish province, and advised Father Sipovich to show more restraint in the future.

Father Sipovich left Rome on 24 March 1947. Instead of proceeding directly to London as ordered, he stopped for over two weeks in France, staying with Father Haroshka in Paris and visiting various Belarusian communities in that country. At last on Wednesday 9 April, he disembarked at Dover, and late in the evening of the same day reached London, his final destination. There he learned that he had missed  Buchys by four days, who waited for him in vain for the whole week. On 25 April he received an irate letter from Rome, signed by Buchys and Secretary General of the Congregation, Joseph Vaitkievicius, threatening Sipovich with the censures reserved for runaway members... The letter ends thus: "I pray Almighty God, that He in his mercy may preserve you in the future from violating the Constitutions (of the Marian Congregation – A.N.) which you gave a solemn promise to observe".