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The head of the Russian Orthodox Church is visiting Poland to meet the nation’s Catholic bishops and sign an unprecedented joint declaration of reconciliation.
Patriarch Kirill I will sign the declaration with Archbishop Józef Michalik of Przemysl, president of the Catholic bishops’ conference, at Warsaw’s Royal Castle on August 17.
“The purpose of this document is to resolve painful pages of Polish and Russian history,” explained Father Jozef Kloch, spokesman for the Polish bishops.
“This event must not be treated in political terms but as an indication of a path, a symbol and a sign of obedience to the will of Christ, an important step on the path of forgiveness,” added Archbishop Michalik.
“We are deeply convinced that relations between the peoples of Russia and Poland, which have often been marred by hatred, wars and enmity, can and must be improved,” said the Russian Orthodox Church’s head of external relations, Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyez.
The first important step towards Russo-Polish reconciliation was the visit of a group of monks from a Russian Orthodox monastery near Ostashkov to Jasna Gora, the Catholic shrine of the Black Madonna of Czestochowa, in 2009.
Archbishop Stanislaw Nowak of Czestochowa and Father Izydor Matuszewski, prior general of the Pauline Fathers and custodian of the shrine, gave a copy of the icon of the Black Madonna to the Russian Orthodox delegation.
“This holy icon of the Black Madonna is a sign of our spiritual closeness, and also a symbol of Europe’s two lungs, Eastern and Western, as the Servant of God John Paul II taught,” said Archbishop Nowak at the time.
The Orthodox monks kept the copy of the image of the Madonna in the Monastery of Saint Nil at Stolobienskoje, close to a Second World War Soviet camp where more than 6000 Polish soldiers were killed.
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Image: RIA Novosti
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