Andrei Tsikota

Archmandrite Andrei Tsikota MIC (Chinese: 祁高德, Belarusian: Андрэй Цікота, Andrej Cikota, Polish: Andrzej Cikoto, also Andrew Cikoto;[1] 5 December 1891, Vilno Governorate - 11 February 1952, Irkutsk Oblast) was a Belarusian Roman Catholic and Greek Catholic priest, Superior General of the Congregation of Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception, Ordinary of the Russian Catholic Apostolic Exarchate of Harbin, member of the Rada of the Belarusian Democratic Republic.

Andrei Tsikota was born into a peasant family in Plavushka, now Smarhon District, northwestern Belarus, then part of the Russian Empire.

[1] In December 1948 Tsikota and a small group of Harbin-based Catholic priests, including the Belarusians Jazep Hermanovich and Tamash Padziava, was arrested by communist Chinese authorities.

[1] After several months of manipulative interrogations and solitary confinement, Tsikota and other priests were sentenced to 25 years in of labor camps.

A memorial cross dedicated to Archimandrite Tsikota has been erected by Belarusian Catholics in 2003 in Zhodzishki, Smarhon District, near his birthplace.

[5] In 2003, the Catholic Church in Russia under Archbishop Tadevush Kandrusevich has initiated a process of beatification of Archimandrite Andrei Tsikota.