The President of Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko, on Monday received the new Metropolitan of Minsk, Za-slavl, & Patriarchal Exarch of All Belarus, His Eminence Veniamin. During the meeting, the Belarus leader stressed that the state will always be committed to inter-religious peace in the east European country.
He added that the Church, and especially the Orthodox Church, is a basic pylon of the Belarus state, especially in modern era, when some people have lost their spirituality, as he said.
Lukashenko was re-elected as the country’s head of state last August for a sixth consecutive term, although the political opposition in the country and much of the west condemned the election as plagued by electoral fraud.