The first Evangelical Lutheran Church in Belarus was founded in the period of the Reformation in Europe around 1535. By the end of the 16th century, there were about 10 Lutheran parishes in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Ruthenia and Samogitia (hereinafter referred to as GDL). Under the “Ruthenia’s lands” as part of the GDL, it was understood not modern Russia, but the eastern lands of modern Belarus, the lands of Ukraine, as well as the Smolensk and Bryansk regions of modern Russia. In the Middle Ages, Lithuania had to be understood as the northwestern lands of modern Belarus and the southeastern lands of modern Lithuania. The western lands of modern Lithuania were called Samogitia. Thus, modern Belarusian lands consist of the lands of medieval Lithuania and Western Rus – this was medieval Belarus. Modern Russia was called in the Middle Ages the Grand Duchy of Moscow or Moscovia. Moreover, these were not parishes of foreign citizens (ambassadors and merchants), as, for example, in the 16th century in Moscow, but evangelical parishes of precisely Belarusian subjects (Ruthenians and Litvins) of the Grand Duke of the GDL.
One of the first Evangelical Lutheran preachers in the GDL was the Lithuanian Avraam Kuleva, a graduate of a seminary in Germany and who became a Roman Catholic priest there. However, returning to Vilniа (now Vilnius) in 1539, A. Kuleva began to preach the ideas of M. Luther at the Church of St. Anne in Vilnia (a masterpiece of Gothic architecture of the GDL, which can still be seen now) and founded the Lutheran school, where the natives studied as Lithuanian and Belarusian lands. Because of the persecution of representatives of the Roman Catholic Church, he was forced to leave Vilnia and flee the country. Starting from the 1550s, Lutheran parishes (parishes) developed in Vilnia and Sluсk, a little later – in Minsk, Hrodna, in Hajciuniški village, now in the Voranava district, Višnieva – now in the Smarhoń district, Janava, Ašmiany district (Hrodna region, Belarus). In 1600, according to some information, there was already a Lutheran parish in the Golendry settlement in Neudorf, which was in the vicinity of Brest. The Golendras are descendants of the Dutch who settled near Brest, probably in the 16th century. Such a rapid development of Lutheranism was facilitated by traditional religious liberalism in the GDL. Back in 1563, the legal equality of Protestants with Catholics and Orthodox was approved by the GDL parliament, and this norm was included in the Third Statute of the GDL of 1588, written in the Old Belarusian language or in the Belarusian version of the “Ruthenia’s language”.
In the 16th century, the dominant denomination among the Protestants of the GDL was Calvinism (the Reformed Church) or, as it is called in Belarusian medieval documents, the Helvetian faith, it means “Swiss faith”, because J. Calvin was a Swiss Christian reformer. The main promoter of Calvinism was the medieval Belarusian prince (Litvin) Mikolaj Radziwiłł Čorny, Chancellor of GDL the and governor of Vilnia. Having accepted the teachings of Calvin in 1533 together with his family, Mikolaj Radziwiłł Čorny used his own means and influence to spread exactly Calvinism in his private feudal estates in Belarus. Calvinism is also accepted by most of the chivalry of the medieval lands of Belarus and also partially by the medieval peasantry. Calvinist schools were opened in Vilnia, Navahrudak, Niasviž, Sluck and Orša. Especially legendary among the Protestants of the GDL was the book “Pastille” of the Vilnia’s pastor Samuel Dambroŭski. There were legends about her, they said that the book “Pastilla” did not burn when Roman Catholic priests threw it into the oven. It is interesting to note that, according to a confirmed written source, it was the Protestant Salamon Rysinski who, for the first time in the history of Belarus, identified himself not as a Litvin or Ruthenian, as almost all the ancestors of modern Belarusians did in the 16th century, but, literally, as a “Belarusian”. This indicates that in the history of Belarus, Protestantism contributed to the formation of modern Belarusian national identity, since the Roman Catholic Church contributed to the Polonization of medieval Belarusians and Lithuanians, despite the fact that it was not then essentially Polish, and the Orthodox Church from the second half of the 18th century, being already part of the Russian Orthodox Church, contributed to the Russification of Belarusians. There is an opinion among a number of historians that the first Belarusian book printer Francysk Skaryna also converted to Protestantism. So, at the V Lateran Council of the Roman Catholic Church, which took place in 1512-1517, a delegation of the Danish king arrived, and a certain Skaryna was with her. And after three months in Padua, while defending his doctoral degree, Francysk Skaryna is called the secretary of the Danish king Hans. So even then Skaryna could have been a Protestant, because Denmark is a Lutheran country. However, it is not. Denmark converted to Lutheranism later, under King Christian III (1534–1559), brought up in the Lutheran faith, who immediately after the coronation issued an order for the arrest of Roman Catholic bishops and announced that only Lutheranism should now be preached in Denmark. In 1537, with the approval of M. Luther, a new church structure was approved in the Kingdom of Denmark. Perhaps F. Skaryna at one time worked as a secretary of the Danish king, but not as a Protestant. It is important to note that most of the magnates of the GDL professed Protestantism at the end of the 16th century. In 1569, the magnates of the GDL signed an agreement with Poland on the creation of a common Republic or the Commonwealth of Both Nations. At the end of the 16th century, the Counter-Reformation began throughout Europe from Portugal to the GDL a set of countermeasures of the Roman Catholic Church to counter the Reformation. At the request of the Roman Catholic King of the Commonwealth of Both Nations Stefan Batory, whose royal residence was in the castle of the Belarusian city of Hrodna, the Order of the Jesuits (Society of Jesus) arrived in Belarusian lands from Western Europe to fight the Protestants. Under King S. Batory, Hrodna became the main center of the Counter-Reformation not only in Belarusian, but also in Lithuanian lands, and later in Eastern Latvia. In this struggle, the Orthodox clergy of medieval Belarus was divided. Some took the side of the Roman Catholics, and this also contributed to the conclusion in the Belarusian city of Brest in 1596 of the church union between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church in the GDL and in Polish Ukraine, one of the most important in the history of Eastern Europe. After the church union, the Uniate Church or the Greek Catholic Church, as it is called to this day, arose. Others from the Orthodox clergy were in solidarity with the Protestants in the fight against the claims of the Pope of Rome to strengthen the position of the Roman Catholic Church in the Belarusian lands on the territory of the GDL and the Commonwealth of Both Nations. The Jesuit Order did not persecute the Protestants of the GDL with the help of the Inquisition, but the Order created a powerful Counter-Reformation movement based on educational centers in the form of colleges throughout Belarus. The Roman Catholic churches of the Order of the Jesuits and their collegiate buildings of the 16th-18th centuries can still be seen in Hrodna, Pinsk, Minsk, Polack, Orša and even in the village of Juravičy (Homel region), as well as in other cities and villages Belarus. Everyone was invited to study at the prestigious Jesuit colleges, regardless of confessional affiliation, but the education system was built in such a way that almost all convinced Roman Catholics graduated from the colleges. Nevertheless, the positions of Calvinists and Lutherans in the GDL until the middle of the 17th century were strong among the chivalry. When the GDL signed another union, for example, with Lutheran Sweden in the Lithuanian city of Keidaniai in 1655, the GDL parliament consisted of only Lutherans and Calvinists, including only two Orthodox and, surprisingly, there was not a single Roman Catholic. After the victory of the Counter-Reformation in the Belarusian lands and the strengthening of the position of the Roman Catholic Church in Belarus, incl. and through the Uniate Church, there were almost no Belarusian Lutherans left. Since the 18th century, the Lutherans in the Belarusian lands were mainly Latvians and Germans who lived in the Commonwealth of Both Nations.
Nevertheless, Lutheranism in Belarus did not lose elements of its historical identity for a long time. Despite the new influx of German and Latvian settlers, who replenished the number of Lutherans of the already former GDL during the period of the Russian Empire at the end of the 18th-19th centuries, there still remained a significant number of “old” Lutherans, especially in the west of Belarus, primarily in the Brest region and in the city of Hrodna, and in the Hrodna region (Hajciuniški and other settlements), historically closely associated with Protestantism of the GDL.
As a result of the annexation of Belarus by the Russian Empire in 1772-1795. after the three divisions of the Commonwealth of the Both Nations, the Lutheran parishes of the former GDL were subordinated to various departments of the Russian imperial government. So, after the last division of the Commonwealth of Both Nations (1795), the Lithuanian Consistory itself in Vilnia became subordinate to the Russian Ministry of Justice. In Eastern Belarus, which became part of Russia in 1772, Lutherans and Calvinists initially even felt some relief from the oppression by radical Roman Catholic clergy in the former times of the Commonwealth of Both Nations. In particular, the Lutheran community in Polаck built a new church building in 1775.
In 1780, by the personal permission of Empress Catherine II, a new Lutheran church was founded by Mahilioŭ Lutherans. When visiting the Belarusian city of Mahilioŭ, the Russian Empress ordered the local Orthodox archbishop G. Konisski to hand over to the Lutherans one of the unclaimed Orthodox buildings. In Vitebsk, in 1833, the Russian authorities transferred the building of the former Roman Catholic church of the 18th century to the Lutheran shrine. However, with a relatively tolerant attitude towards Lutheranism and Calvinism, the Russian authorities at the same time established a number of restrictions. So, in the case of marriage with the Orthodox, Lutherans and Calvinists, according to Russian law, could not raise their children in the Protestant confession. At the same time, the conversion of Lutherans to Orthodoxy was encouraged in every possible way, while the conversion of Orthodox to Lutheranism was a criminal offense in Russia both for the believer himself and for the pastor of the community until 1905. The construction of a new Lutheran church required the obligatory consent of the local Orthodox church authorities. The Russian authorities also sought to eliminate any originality of the Lutheran tradition in the Belarusian lands. Already in 1805, a new rite of liturgy was ordered from St. Petersburg, something similar to the Swedish rite – instead of the old Saxon rite used in the GDL before. According to the decree of the Russian Emperor Alexander I of 1819, Lutherans and Calvinists (reformers) of the Russian Empire were united into one denomination. In 1832, after the Polish uprising of 1831, which was supported by many Belarusians from different confessions, who advocated the restoration of the Commonwealth of Poland and the GDL, the remnants of the autonomy and identity of the Lutherans of Belarus were finally eliminated. For example, the ancient Vilnia’s Consistory was dissolved altogether, and all the Lutheran parishes of the former GDL – Vilnia, Kaunas, Hrodna, Minsk, Vitebsk and Mahilioŭ provinces – were attached to the Eighth Diocese of the Courland Consistory with the capital in the city of Mitava (now the city of Jelgava, Latvia), which was governed on the basis of a unified charter. At the same time, the St. Petersburg authorities introduced a new Lutheran service book (Agenda) in the Eighth Diocese, now drawn up according to the Prussian model. Office work in Lutheran parishes was to be conducted only in German. However, this was given with difficulty in the Belarusian lands. Attempts to introduce, for example, the German language into the worship of the Neudorf Lutheran parish in the Brest region in 1868 were stopped due to hopelessness. And from the data of the census of the Russian Empire in 1897, it follows that more than 1600 Lutherans then signed up simply as “Belarusian-speaking”. In addition, in some areas of northern Belarus, where Latvian settlers settled, sermons were conducted by pastors in Latvian. An interesting phenomenon in the history of Belarusian Lutheranism is the cases of Jews converting to Lutheranism in the second half of the 19th century. As you know, Jews were deprived of many general civil rights in the Russian Empire, lived in the Pale of Settlement within the borders of the former Commonwealth of Both Nations, however, if they adopted Christianity, they became full subjects of the Russian Empire. Of the Jews who were then baptized in Belarus, many chose Lutheranism. Perhaps this was due to the strong national and cultural conditioning of Russian Orthodoxy, nationalistically focused on the history and culture of Russia, and also because of its cult of saints and icons, which obliged the Jews to venerate God, which historically was alien to the spirit of Judaism and the Bible. In the latter case, for the same reason, they did not particularly accept Roman Catholicism.
It is important to note that some of the Belarusian public and cultural figures of the first half of the 20th century were Protestants in the history of Belarus, in particular, the first editor of the first Belarusian newspaper “Nasha Niva” or “Naša niva” A. Vlasaŭ was a Methodist, and the Belarusian playwright Franz Aliachnovič professed Calvinism (was a Reformed). One of the fathers of the Belarusian national revival, a political and cultural figure of the first half of the 20th century, Professor Vaсlaŭ Ivanoŭski, was also a Calvinist. The events of the first half of the 20th century, first of all, the October Revolution of 1917 in the Russian Empire, and later the Soviet-Polish war (1919-1921) divided the Belarusian lands between the future USSR and Poland according to the Riga Peace Treaty of 1921. Unfortunately, Soviet Russia did not allow a delegation from the Soviet Belarus to the negotiation process in Riga and agreed to give almost half of Belarus to the Poles. In the east of Belarus, already in the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic, the Bolshevik authorities put an end to the existence of any Lutheran parishes by 1939.
The lands of Western Belarus, together with the city of Vilnia, ended up in Poland. In the 1920s in Western Belarus, the issue of publishing the Holy Scriptures in the modern Belarusian language was acute. The previous translation of the Bible into Belarusian was carried out back in the 16th century by F. Skaryna and M. Radziwiłł (Čorny). It is important to note that a few Lutherans of Western Belarus also joined in this, who were represented mainly in three cities: Brest, Hrodna and Vilnia. In 1928, the Lutheran pastor, and later the lord of the Vilna Lutheran diocese, Z. Loeppe, wrote that he needed the New Testament in the Belarusian language for preaching. The merit of his initiative, as well as other Protestants, primarily the Methodists and Baptists of Western Belarus, was that Anton Luckievič i Luka Dziekuć-Maliej published in Belarusian in 1931 the full version of the New Testament and Psalms. It was a record circulation for the entire Belarusian publishing house (circulation of 25,000 copies).
As a result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939, Western Belarus was reunited with Eastern Belarus, and the city of Vilnia, already as the city of Vilnius, became part of Lithuania, annexed by the Bolsheviks, which became part of the USSR. All Lutheran parishes in Western Belarus were also closed by the Bolsheviks. The revival of Lutheranism in Belarus began only in the 1990s after the fall of the USSR. Parishes began to revive on the basis of the German communities of Belarus. It should be noted that the Evangelical Lutheran Church is not exclusively the faith of Germany or the Germans, and it did not arise from scratch as an invention of M. Luther, as many mistakenly believe, but is a reformed Christianity that belongs to all nations and races on Earth. With careful study of the Bible, many agree to accept the principles of the evangelical or evangelical faith, as it is called by the apostle Paul himself (Philippians 1:27). That is how the Christian faith was originally called in the 1st century AD.
As for the history of Lutheranism in the Minsk region, the history of Lutheranism has been conducted since the 16th century. The earliest mention of the appearance of Lutheranism on the territory of Belarus dates back to 1535, when the Minsk prince Jury Siemianovič allocated a land plot for the construction of a Lutheran church. Further history is silent about what happened to her. From the history of the late period, we know for certain that on the plan of the city of Minsk in 1809, already under the Russian administration, a Lutheran church appeared, which was not yet on the plan of 1793 in the era of the Commonwealth of Both Nations. The first pastor of the Lutheran parish in Minsk during the period of the Russian Empire was Karl Ludwig Gemmerich. In 1798, became the pastor S. Karschtedt of the parish in Minsk. Under him, a Lutheran church began to be built in the city of Minsk. On January 1, 1811, the Lutheran Church of Saints Paul and Alexander was consecrated, built in honor of the patron saints of Russian emperors – Emperor Paul I and his son Alexander, who later became Emperor Alexander I. In 1833-1860, a Lutheran school operated at the church. The church was built of wood. In 1835, a great fire in Minsk destroyed the wooden church of Saints Paul and Alexander. By the way, its location is still unknown to historians. It was not possible to restore the Lutheran church. In 1840, Russian Emperor Nicholas I allocated 20,000 rubles for the construction of a new Lutheran church and pastor’s house in the city of Minsk. In 1845, the Lutheran Church of St. Nicholas, in honor of the already patron saint of the Russian Emperor Nicholas I, was consecrated. In the Russian Empire, including Finland, the head of the Evangelical Lutheran Church was the monarch, it means Russian emperor. The Lutheran Church of St. Nicholas was located on Little Lutheran Street (now the intersection of Karl Liebknecht and Korž Streets, where Lutheran Square is now located).
The Lutheran Church in Minsk operated until 1933, when the Bolsheviks placed a theater for young spectators in the building of the church. It was later completely demolished. By the way, the Belarusian writer Artur Volski, who was the director of the Belarusian Republican Theater for Young Spectators, was baptized in the Minsk Lutheran Church of St. Nicholas. At one time, more than 2,000 Germans lived in Minsk. Their families settled in an area called “Niamieckaja Slabada”. It consisted of three streets: Liuteranskaja, Malaja Liuteranskaja and Niamieckaja. Later, they were all renamed by the Soviet authorities into Volaha Street, Clara Zetkin Street and Rosa Luxembourg Street, respectively. On May 14, 2019, there was a solemn ceremony of opening a memorial sign on the territory of the Lutheran Square in Minsk in the former part of “Niamieckaja Slabada”, where the building of the Church of St. Nicholas was located. The event was attended by representatives of the Minsk city executive committee, the administration of the Maskoŭski district, the German embassy, members of the Lutheran community of the city of Minsk.
In the 1990s, the revival of the Evangelical Lutheran Church began in the city of Minsk. As of 2021, two parishes are officially registered. As can be seen from this article, Lutheranism in the history of Christianity in Belarus has deeper roots than just “the religion of German settlers from Western Europe.” This was also taken into account by the Belarusian legislator when defining traditional confessions in Belarus. According to the preamble of the Law of the Republic of Belarus “On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations” dated December 17, 1992 No. 2054-XII, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Belarus is recognized as inseparable from the history of Belarus along with Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy, it means it’s recognized as a traditional religion of Belarus.
Appendix:
The list of Minsk Lutheran pastors of the period of the Russian Empire can be found on Wikipedia with reference to the source: Erik Amburger. Die Pastoren der evangelischen Kirchen Russlands vom Ende des 16. Jahrhunderts bis 1937. Ein biographisches Lexikon. — Lüneburg: Institut Nordostdeutsches Kulturwerk; Erlangen: Martin Luther Verlag, 1998. — S. 159—160.
1796 Karl Ludwig Gemmerich
1798-1831 Samuel Karschtedt
1833-1835 Karl Leberecht Backmann
1835-1859 Peter Williams
1860-1871 Eugene Schroder
1872-1878 Ulrich Grundberg
1878-1885 Eduard Gahlnbek
1886-1891 Adrian Schultz
1892-1893 Eugene Kluge
1893-1905 Theodor Švalkoŭski
1905 Wilhelm Rust
1906-1920 Adam Matšulan