Łukasz Dziekuć-Malej

Lukash Mikalaevich Dzekut-Malei (Belarusian: Лукаш Мікалаевіч Дзекуць-Малей; 1 October 1888 – 20 January 1955) was a Belarusian Baptist pastor, national and independence activist, social figure, and translator of the Bible into the Belarusian language. He translated several religious pamphlets into Belarusian, published his own prayer book, and contributed to religious periodicals. During the interwar period, he established numerous Baptist congregations around Brest. He actively participated in the Belarusian national movement during both World War I and World War II, and was repeatedly suspected of espionage.

Biography Lukash Dzekut-Malei was born on 1 October 1888 in Slonim, then part of the Russian Empire, into an Orthodox family. His father was a teacher. Orphaned at the age of four under undisclosed circumstances, he was raised until age 16 by the Funt family, who were also teachers. After completing pedagogical school, he became a teacher himself.

In 1912, while serving in the military in Białystok, he encountered Baptism. On 31 December 1912, he was baptized in the Supraśl river by preacher Roman Chomiak. Due to his frequent preaching, he was arrested by Tsarist authorities in the village of (near Pruzhany). Tied to a horse, he was forced to walk approximately 170 km to a prison in Brest. Between 1913 and 1914, he studied theology at a Bible school in Saint Petersburg, led by Ivan Prokhanov, a leader of evangelical Christians.

In 1918, he founded a Belarusian school in Krynki. In February and April 1919, he was briefly detained by Polish authorities for his involvement in the Belarusian national movement. In 1920, he was a leader of the Belarusian National Committee in Ihumen and headed the Belarusian school council in Grodno. Between 1919 and 1920, Polish authorities closed Belarusian schools around Grodno and prohibited Belarusian activists from operating. In 1921, Dzekut-Malei and other Belarusian activists were ordered to leave Grodno. That year, he relocated to Brest.

Baptist pastor In 1921, negotiations began to unite the Baptist Union with the . Dzekut-Malei actively participated, becoming a committee member (as a councilor) in 1922 to set unification terms. According to Krzysztof Bednarczyk, Brest was chosen as the conference venue because "Lukash Dzekut-Malei was from the very beginning the greatest enthusiast of unification". He was elected to the Unification Committee. Two subsequent conferences were also held in Brest. The unification dissolved in 1927, though cooperation between the two groups ceased in September 1925. In September 1926, at a conference in Łódź, he was elected vice-president of the Baptist group. In 1937, he became a member of the church's Supreme Council.

Until 1939, Brest remained his primary area of activity, during which he founded numerous congregations around the region. On 21 June 1926, a baptism ceremony he led in Kamyenyets attracted around 2,000 people. also a teacher. the only one operated by Polish Baptists during the interwar period. He also provided aid to Jewish families, particularly before Passover. He was suspected of spying for Nazi Germany. The outbreak of war with Germany saved him from execution, as German forces entered Brest on 22 June, Under German occupation, he assisted Jews, leading to his arrest by the Gestapo in 1943. The circumstances of his departure from Germany are unclear. By 1946, he resided in Gdańsk. He initially served as a district presbyter but was removed from this role on 31 December 1949.

He faced harassment from the Security Service, which accused him of collaborating with British intelligence.

On 25 March 2004, the Gdańsk City Council named a street after him, at 15 Lukash Dzekut-Malei Street, in recognition of his contributions to Poles and Jews. Helena Głogowska, in her book Białorusini na Wybrzeżu Gdańskim, described him as one of three prominent Belarusian activists in Gdańsk Pomerania (alongside Mikołaj Dworzecki and Andrzej Wagina).

Bible translator and publicist In 1920, Dzekut-Malei initiated the translation of the Bible into Belarusian. He first translated the four Gospels, publishing them as separate booklets between 1926 and 1928 in Łódź. The New Testament and Psalms were published in 1931 by the British and Foreign Bible Society in Helsinki under the title Новы Запавет Госпада нашага Ісуса Хрыста і Псальмы in a print run of 25,000 copies. This was the first complete New Testament in Belarusian, earning him the title "father of the Belarusian Bible".

Dzekut-Malei regarded the translation as his greatest life achievement. In January 1945, he wrote from Neubrandenburg to Methodist pastor Jan Piotrowski in Berlin: For a long time, I carried in my heart the desire for our people to have, like other nations, a complete Bible.

Between 1920 and 1924, he translated 17 religious pamphlets into Belarusian. From 1927 to 1928, he contributed a Belarusian column to the Baptist religious magazine Majak. In 1942, he published a Belarusian prayer book in Minsk.