Pinsk Catholic Seminary Liquidated

• 8.11.2024, 16:18

The seminary has not passed the re-registration obligatory for religious organizations in Belarus.

The Higher Theological Seminary named after St. Thomas Aquinas in Pinsk has suspended its activities. This was not officially announced, but the information was known in church circles.

Now there is confirmation: in a publication on Catholic.by about retreats for bishops, the Pinsk seminary, where spiritual exercises were held, was called “former”, katolik.life noted.

The website of the Pinsk diocese also indicates that in 2024 the seminary suspended its work.

This is probably the first significant result of the process of re-registration of religious associations organized by the Belarusian authorities. Earlier, some priests expressed the opinion that the seminary would not “survive” re-registration.

According to the law, organizations that cannot undergo re-registration are subject to liquidation.

Recently, the Pinsk seminary has not recruited students, and its premises were used for retreats and other meetings.

The global reason for the suspension could be the small number of people wishing to become Catholic priests. Although this year there were significantly more applicants than in previous years.

The reform of preparation for the priesthood in Belarus was announced in 2018, when the Pinsk seminary lost its inter-diocesan status.

Thus, now there is one Catholic seminary left in Belarus — the Inter-diocesan Higher Theological Seminary in Hrodna.

The Pinsk seminary was founded in 1925 by Bishop Zygmunt Loziński. It functioned until 1939. After the collapse of the USSR, its revival and reopening took place in 2001 thanks to the efforts of Cardinal Kazimierz Świątek.