First Catholic Pro-Life Center Just Opened in Belarus

A pro-life center has just opened up in Belarus! Director of Open Hearts Foundation is happy to announce Life Center, which opened in December 2023 in Mogilev, Belarus. The center holds meetings and seminars for people from all walks of life, showing them how they can choose life in any circumstance. They teach students how they can live a chaste life, thereby respecting their own dignity and that of their peers. HLI’s affiliate, Fr. Giordano, helped Vladislav Valakhovich, PhD, Director of Open Hearts Foundation, to raise the funds necessary for this worthy cause.

Open Hearts Foundation is 14 years old, and they have been praying and hoping to find a space that could serve as their base for their Belarusian pro-life cause. Miraculously, Vladislav happened to pass by this house and saw it was for sale, and so the Open Hearts Foundation prayed all the harder for this space to become their own. The house was abandoned and badly needed repairs, so they prayed for a miracle. On the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, October 7, 2022, they were given the keys to the beautiful house!

Work on repairs started, allowing the center to open a little over a year later in December 2023. Despite the state of the house when it was bought, they were able to turn it into a comfortable and welcoming space. Open Hearts Foundation is excited to have a girls’ school, as well as training in Natural Family Planning and birth. They will even host balls in the house’s large hall!

This center serves as the very first Catholic life center in Belarus, a nation that is heavily Orthodox. It serves as a place for Russian-speaking peoples to come to receive the teaching of the Church and learn how to live a Catholic life in a world that is so anti-life and anti-family.

Though they have no gas, nor reliable electricity, they are confident that God will provide – He already has!