More than 200 clergy and pilgrims from different countries arrived for the consecration of the new church in Vitebsk

October 10, Vitebsk / Diana Kurilo - BELTA /. More than 200 clergy and pilgrims from different countries arrived today for the consecration of the Roman Catholic Church of Jesus the Merciful in Vitebsk, informed the head of the department for religious and national affairs of the Vitebsk Regional Executive Committee, Alexander Nevinsky, to a BELTA correspondent. According to the interlocutor, this is the first church built and consecrated in Vitebsk in more than 100 years. During the design, architects took into account that the temple is being built in a new residential area and adopted modern trends in religious construction as a basis. The church is built in the shape of a cross. Its height is 32 m, width - 18 m, length - 28 m. The consecration ceremony of the new building will conclude the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Vitebsk Diocese of the Roman Catholic Church. The Church of Jesus the Merciful will become the 77th active church in the Vitebsk region, with another 7 Roman Catholic churches under construction. The Vitebsk and Polotsk-Glubokoye dioceses of the Belarusian Exarchate of the Moscow Patriarchate, operating in the region, have 184 religious buildings and are building 13 more. Baptists own 25 churches, Christians of Evangelical Faith - 33, Seventh-day Adventists - 7. 515 religious communities of 17 denominations live peacefully together on the Vitebsk land. About half of the population of the Vitebsk region consider themselves believers, of whom 84% identify as Orthodox and 14% as Catholic. -0-