Roman Inroads

As if following the path from Rome that was trod by missionaries of long ago, the envoys of the Holy See scored major triumphs in Eastern Europe last week. First, with the remarkable assent of the Kremlin, Pope John Paul II named a new bishop for Belorussia, a Soviet republic that borders Poland. It was the first such appointment in 63 years; the region's last Catholic bishop was sent to prison in 1927. The Pontiff then named three new bishops and regularized the status of a fourth to give hard-line Czechoslovakia its fullest hierarchy since the Communists launched a postwar effort to liquidate Catholicism. Coming only one week after the Holy See established diplomatic ties with Poland, the latest moves point to a growing accommodation between the church and the officially atheistic regimes of the Soviet bloc.

In Minsk, capital of Belorussia, Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, 43, was named apostolic administrator (acting bishop under direct Vatican jurisdiction), thus becoming the leader of the republic's 2 million Catholics. Kondrusiewicz, a former architect who attended seminary in Lithuania, has been a priest only since 1981.

In Czechoslovakia six of the nation's 13 sees are now led by Rome-appointed bishops or apostolic administrators. Restoration of the hierarchy had been stalled for years because the regime wanted bishops tied to a Communist-front "peace" association. Rome refused -- and finally prevailed.

The most dramatic church reforms have occurred in Lithuania. The Kremlin has permitted a nearly complete hierarchy, even though the Vatican refuses to recognize the U.S.S.R.'s 1940 annexation of Lithuania. In 1988 the regime restored the two top churchmen, who between them spent 53 years in internal exile. In March the Pope named three new bishops (the first since World War II) and two apostolic administrators, so that five of the six dioceses have resident leaders.

Lithuania's Catholics have also regained church buildings, established their own bimonthly magazine and, as of three weeks ago, are producing a TV show that is seen each Sunday. The man responsible for the new religious freedoms, Mikhail Gorbachev, will visit Italy in November and is almost certain to pay a historic visit to the Polish Pontiff. It would be the first meeting ever between a Pope and a Soviet leader.