Revival, but only with state permission: In Belarus, Franklin Graham's Festival of Hope raises questions about religious freedom

For three nights starting Friday, the Chizhovka Arena in Minsk will hold the largest gathering of evangelicals ever in Belarus’s history, according to organizers.

Organizers expect around 9,000 people to enter the indoor sports arena for the Festival of Hope, organized by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) from May 15 to 17. Franklin Graham is scheduled to preach on the final two nights, and a choir of more than 1,300 singers, as well as musicians from Belarus, Russia, and the United States, will also take the stage.

For Leonid Mikhovich, one of the event’s coordinators, the scale itself marks a significant moment. “We’ve never had anything like this,” he told CT, noting that even in the 1990s, when post-Soviet religious life briefly bloomed, gatherings of this size were unheard of. “We had large activities, maybe up [to] 1,000,” he said, “but nothing like this.”

A coalition of Belarusian evangelical networks, including United Church of Christians of the Evangelical Faith in the Republic of Belarus and the Union of Evangelical Christian Baptists of the Republic of Belarus, is facilitating the festival. Mikhovich, who is also the general secretary of the Baptist Union, said that while Belarus’s evangelical churches have long operated in parallel and partnered on outreach programs, this is the first time they are coordinating at a national scale.

Mikhovich believes the event also gives the small evangelical community in Belarus a sense of legitimacy. “For us, to have something like this in an arena of this importance, it’s almost a kind of legalization,” he said.

In a country where the authoritarian government tightly manages the public square and constrains civil society, the festival represents a rare moment of visibility for evangelicals, who make up less than 2 percentof the population. Meanwhile, the Belarusian Orthodox Church, which is under the authority of the Moscow Patriarchate, makes up 60 percent.

But while organizers like Mikhovich describe the gathering as a milestone, religious liberty monitors caution it may not bring greater freedoms for evangelicals. Instead, experts warn, the event highlights how authoritarian systems can selectively permit large religious gatherings while maintaining restrictions on everyday religious life.

Global Christian Nationalism: A Guide

Religious nationalism knows no borders.

In many countries, the line between faith and political power is no longer just blurred — it’s a defining force in public life.

In a new guide at ReligionLink, we offer practical tools for understanding and covering global Christian nationalism: what it is, how it operates across different contexts and why it matters for democracy, human rights and international affairs.

While the term is often associated with U.S. politics, movements that fuse Christian identity with nationalist agendas are shaping policies, society and public debates from Eastern Europe to Latin America and beyond.

Whether you’re on the religion beat or covering politics, this resource is designed to help you ask sharper questions, spot emerging trends and report with greater clarity.

Is The Christian Right Coming For Europe?

If you’re anything like me, you pay attention when an e-mail is marked “URGENT!!” 

The particular e-mail I have in mind carried a subject line that was direct and equally attention-grabbing: “Christian nationalism is coming for Europe.”

The content was a single link, to an article written by United States journalist Katherine Stewart for The New Republic on the rise of the Christian Right in the United Kingdom. In it, Stewart tells of how she believes a form of hyper-patriarchal, homophobic and nationalistic Christianity often associated with evangelicals in the US is gaining a beachhead in the UK. The developments there, she writes, “are like a window on the American past. 

“This is how things must have looked before the antidemocratic reaction really took hold,” she wrote. 

As a correspondent covering European Christians and as a scholar teaching religion in Germany, I’ve tracked some of the developments, institutions and movements Stewart cites. While rumors of the Christian right’s rise in Europe need to be taken seriously, it is also vitally important that the careful observer of religion take note of some of the complexities that have shaped the Christian right’s contours in ways distinct from, if related to, the forms we see taking hold in the U.S.