Belarus's first cardinal Swiontek dies

Belarus's first cardinal Kazimir Swiontek, who helped revive the Catholic Church after the collapse of the Soviet Union, has died. He was 96. The cardinal, who had long been ill, died on Thursday, said the Roman Catholic Church in Belarus. Swiontek was born in 1914 in Estonia and his family was exiled to Siberia when he was three. He became a priest in what is now Poland in 1939 and was arrested in 1941 after the Soviets occupied western Belarus. He was arrested again in 1944 and sentenced to 10 years in Soviet labour camps in Siberia and the Arctic. After his return from the labour camps in 1954 he served as a priest in the western Belarussian town of Pinsk despite widespread religious persecution in atheist Soviet Union. In 1994, Pope John Paul II bestowed on Swiontek the title of cardinal. His supporters called his death a big loss to the Catholic Church in Belarus. "This was a great man. He served as a priest for 70 years including the 10 years he spent in Stalin's camps," said Catholic activist Konstantin Shytal. "He had done a lot for the revival of the Catholic Church in post-Soviet times." Catholics account for a quarter of the population in Belarus.