100 000 Roubles Belorussian Orthodox Church; emergency issue

In the early 1990s, the Belarusian Orthodox Church — operating under the Moscow Patriarchate — partnered with the Savings Bank of the Republic of Belarus to issue a series of commemorative high-denomination notes during a period of severe hyperinflation. The 100,000 rouble face value reflects just how rapidly the Belarusian ruble had collapsed by 1994; the country had only introduced its own currency two years earlier following the Soviet dissolution.

Whether these circulated as genuine emergency tender or functioned primarily as commemorative certificates is a question collectors still debate. The issuing arrangement itself — a church co-sponsoring a banking instrument — is essentially without parallel in post-Soviet numismatics.