Calling Up For Military Service Put Off For Priests And Seminarians

Dozens of future and existing priests have received summons from military enlistment offices throughout Belarus.

Priests and seminarians of military age will not go to military service this year, despite summonses from the military commissariat, Radio Svaboda sources were informed in Catholic circles.

Representatives of the clergy say that the Lukashenka decree on military service postponement for this category of conscripts has already been signed. There is no official confirmation of this information yet.

In May, dozens of future and existing Catholic and Orthodox priests across Belarus received summons from military enlistment offices. The first seminarians and priests were to be drafted on May 28.

The conference of Catholic bishops appealed to Aliaksandr Lukashenka with a request for a postponement of military service. Hierarchs of the Belarusian Orthodox Church also appealed to the Ministry of Defense.

The situation, when the clergy is called up to serve so massively, has emerged for the first time. Earlier, as representatives of the clergy reported, there were isolated cases of calling up by mistake, but then the problematic situations were sorted out easily.

Previously, there used to be draft determent for seminarians and priests. The seminary administration prepared lists of students and transferred them to state bodies. Each year, Lukashenka took the decision on the postponement with his decree.