May 15, 2007               

UWC SEEKS PAPAL INTERVENTION IN UKRAINIAN-POLISH RELATIONS

     The Ukrainian World Congress is seeking the assistance of the Holy See in improving Ukrainian-Polish relations. It a letter to Pope Benedict XVI the UWC singled out the Cathedral of St. Teresa and the Barefoot Carmelites in Przemysl:

     The Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. Teresa and the Barefoot Carmelites in Przemysl, Poland once belonged to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. In 1947 Ukrainians were forcibly relocated from Przemysl and other Polish territory to the western regions of Poland. Subsequently, property belonging to the Ukrainian community including its churches was confiscated by the then communist State. The subject Cathedral was included within the confiscatory program. Thereafter the Cathedral was turned over to the Polish Roman Catholic Church.

     Following the demise of the communist People’s Republic of Poland and the formation of the democratic Republic of Poland, the Roman Catholic Church in Poland through the intervention of His Holiness Pope John Paul II seemingly restituted the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church for the aforesaid confiscation by transferring to it a lesser in size and inferior in location, but nonetheless significant edifice in the immediate vicinity which now bears the name Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. The original Cathedral to this date remains the property of the Polish Roman Catholic Church and the Carmelites.

     Without addressing the issue of appropriate restitution (simply returning the subject property would be most appropriate in our view) which right should be preserved to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and the Ukrainian –Polish community, we are addressing a more egregious matter involving the subject Cathedral. Located within the Cathedral are at least three bronze plagues, which dedicate the Cathedral appropriately to the memory of Polish war veterans, but with the additional inscription that they were murdered by bands of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. Thus the Cathedral, an ostensibly religious structure, serves as an offensive anti-Ukrainian museum stirring ethnic enmity and tension.

     We are an umbrella organization for Ukrainians residing outside Ukraine founded upon Christian traditions, concerned with the well being of our communities throughout the globe.  Your Holiness’ kind consideration of this matter and spiritual intervention with the Polish Roman Catholic Church would serve to enhance Christian principles in the Polish Church’s relations with its Ukrainian neighbors.

      Copies of the UWC letter were transmitted to His Eminence Jozef Cardinal Glemp of the Roman Catholic Church in Poland, His Eminence Archbishop and Cardinal Lubomyr Huzar, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, His Excellency Archbishop Ivan Martyniak, Archbishop-Metropolitan for Ukrainian Greek Catholics of Poland and the Petro Tyma, head of the Organization of Ukrainians in Poland.