Pope Leo XIV has appointed priest Liavoncij Tumouski as the new apostolic administrator of the Catholic faithful of the Byzantine rite residing in Belarus, after accepting the resignation of Archimandrite Jan Sergiusz Gajek, who had led this jurisdiction since its establishment in 2023.
The appointment was announced this Monday, September 14, by the Holy See Press Office.
The Apostolic Administration for the Catholic faithful of the Byzantine rite residing in Belarus was erected by Pope Francis on March 30, 2023, so the novelty is not the creation of the jurisdiction—as might be inferred from previous reports about it—but rather the change of its head.
A Studite monk trained in Lviv and Rome
Liavoncij—the religious name of Aliaksandr—Tumouski was born on July 9, 1973, in Polotsk, belonging to the Belarusian diocese of Vitebsk.
In 1995 he entered the monastery of the Studite monks of the Univ Lavra, in Ukraine. He made his simple profession in 1997 and his solemn profession in 2000.
He studied Philosophy and Theology at the Major Seminary of Lviv and at the Ukrainian Catholic University, where he obtained a master’s degree in Theology.
He was ordained deacon in 2002 and received priestly ordination on May 18, 2003.
Between 2008 and 2018 he pursued further studies in Rome and obtained first a licentiate and later a doctorate in Theology at the Pontifical Oriental Institute.
Experience between Belarus, Ukraine, Greece, and Poland
Tumouski was prior of the monastery of Saints Borys and Hleb in Polotsk between 2003 and 2008. He also served as vice-dean of the parishes of the Belarusian Greek-Catholic Church and later as dean of the Eastern protopresbyterate.
In 2015 he was responsible for the pastoral care of Ukrainian Byzantine faithful in Greece and, since 2022, he had been in charge of the pastoral care of the faithful of the Belarusian Greek-Catholic Church in Poland.
A structure created by Francis in 2023
Francis created the Apostolic Administration in March 2023 to provide a specific ecclesiastical structure for Catholics of the Byzantine tradition residing in Belarus.
At that time he appointed Archimandrite Jan Sergiusz Gajek as the first apostolic administrator. Gajek had served since 1993 as apostolic visitor for the Greek-Catholics of the country, after having been appointed to that mission by Saint John Paul II.
Gajek, born in Poland in 1949 and a member of the Congregation of Marian Clerics, had spent decades carrying out his ministry in favor of the Belarusian Byzantine Catholic communities.
Three years after the formal creation of the Apostolic Administration, Leo XIV now accepts his resignation and entrusts the jurisdiction to Father Tumouski.