Belarus
POPULATION 10,335,382
BELARUSAN ORTHODOX 35 percent
ROMAN CATHOLIC 7 percent
PROTESTANT 5 percent
BYZANTINE RITE CATHOLIC 3.5 percent
OTHER 2 percent
NONRELIGIOUS 47.5 percent
Country Overview
Introduction
The Republic of Belarus is an eastern European country that gained its independence in 1991 after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Poland lies to the west, Lithuania and Latvia to the north, Russia to the east, and Ukraine to the south. Poland and Russia in particular have had profound effects on Belarusan history. During the second half of the twentieth century Belarus became heavily industrialized, although its flatlands continue to support a significant agricultural economy. The population is overwhelmingly Belarusan, an East Slavic people.
The land that is now Belarus came under the control of Kievan Rus in the ninth century C.E., under which Eastern Orthodoxy was introduced. When Lithuania and Poland formed a union in the fourteenth century, Belarusan lands came under their jurisdiction, and Roman Catholicism gained a strong footing, particularly among landowners. The Byzantine rite of Catholicism, the Uniate faith, later developed. By the late eighteenth century Belarus had passed to Russian control as Belorussia (White Russia). After World War I the Belarusan territory was disputed between Poland and Russia. The Soviet Union established a Belorussian republic and on the eve of World War II incorporated the former Polish areas into it.
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