December 27, 1998

Pres Aleksandr G Lukashenko pursues his dream of making Belarus a model socialist state and merging it into Russia, thus beginning the rebuilding of former Soviet empire, which he might have a good chance of leading; such a union would be hard enough to achieve, given that Russia is moving in capitalist direction while Belarus is entrenched in old-style socialism, and harder still if Belarus's stumbling economy should ground to a complete halt, saddling Russia with the cost of maintaining another 10 million impoverished people; Minsk in 1998 resembles Moscow in late 1980's; photo; map (M)

Many of New York City's houses of worship are deteriorating under burden of old age, poor maintenance, and making do with limited funds; while membership is holding its own in most of prestigious, so-called 'avenue' churches and synagogues built between 1880 and 1920, it is sharply down at many of older, poorly situated but often historic places of worship; privately financed New York Landmarks Conservancy to date has provided Intercession with close to $30,000 in direct and matching funds as part of program in which 178 grants worth $805,000 have been distributed to 113 churches and synagogues in New York City since 1985; Conservancy has also made available $1.9 million in loans at rates of 3 to 5 percent; some of houses of worship discussed include Bialystoker Synagogue on Lower East Side, Episcopal Church of the Intercession, Korean Presbyterian Church in Queens, and Congregation Shearith Israel; photos (M)

Iraqi people are remarkably friendly to American visitors despite American air strikes and deterioration of their lives under economic sanctions; the animosity they bear toward US Government is increasingly focused on Pres Clinton, who is for them the personification of forces that are bombing and blockading them (M)

Buffalo Sabres defeat New Jersey Devils, 2-0; photo (M)

Eleven European countries are set to formally adopt euro as their common currency; change will make wide price differences on identical goods in different countries more transparent but is not expected to make them disappear; retail price variations of consumer products can be as great as 50 percent from country to country, result of distinctive market conditions that are likely to persist for years; prices of several products noted; photos (M)