Poland’s Catholic Church urges reconciliation with Russians

Poland’s Roman Catholic episcopate said Tuesday the Church favoured reconciliation with its Russian Orthodox brothers as Warsaw prepares for a landmark visit by Patriarch Kirill next week.

“Our message is a call to the faithful and all who support soul searching followed by a mutual asking for forgiveness,” the president of the Polish Episcopate Jozef Michalik said, according to Poland’s KAI Catholic news agency.

“I’m convinced that our nation does not want to remember the bad things, or even remembering them, it does not want to turn these bad things into hate,” he said.

Kirill’s August 16-19 visit to Poland, the first ever by a Russian Orthodox Patriarch, comes amid a storm of controversy over the prospect of three years of prison for all-girl Russian band Pussy Riot as punishment for their anti-Putin “punk prayer” in Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral in February.

They were charged with “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” after Patriarch Kirill denounced them as an affront to all religious Russians and demanded the most severe punishment possible under the law.

In Poland the patriarch is to visit the holy mountain of Grabarka — a key spot for Orthodox worship — and co-sign a joint appeal for reconciliation between Russia and Poland’s Christian churches.

The homeland of the late pope John Paul II, Poland is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic but counts some half a million Orthodox faithful, according to official statistics.

A country forced into communism by the Soviet Union after World War II, Poland joined the European Union in 2004 and has a population of 38.2 million.