In order to inform the general public about the mass destruction in 1938 of Orthodox churches in the Kholm region and southern Pidlyashya members of the Homo Faber association organized a bicycle expedition from July 30 to August 10.
As informs Gazeta Wyborcza, although some of the people who lived through these events were deported as part of Operation Vistula, some eyewitnesses are still alive and in the regions live their relatives.
The participants of the expedition will travel through the territories along the Buh River, north to south, from Tyraspol to Dorohusk. Small towns and villages are concentrated on these territories. These were places largely settled by Ukrainians. The operation to destroy the holy places was directed first and foremost against them.
Background Information:
In the summer of 1938, 127 churches and Orthodox chapels were completely destroyed in the Lublin Voivodeship. Every day from May to July 1938 in the Kholm region and southern Pidlyashya two Orthodox churches were destroyed. Polish workers, police, and soldiers took part in the destruction. Ukrainians who lived on these territories and who were parishioners of the ruined churches, were forcefully Polonized and forced to convert to Catholicism. These actions were part of the Polish national policy.
From the very beginning of the inter-war period the Polish government tried to take away property and limit the influence of the Orthodox Church, and to administratively limit the number of parishes. At the same time, the state took steps to regulate and organize the Orthodox Church so that it could function under new conditions, but remain dependent on the state, which was trying to Polonize the church.
Especially harsh was the policy of the state toward the Orthodox Church on the territory of the Kholm region and southern Pidlyashya, which in the inter-war period were part of the Lublin Voivodeship. The government understood that Orthodoxy was one of the most important distinguishing elements of the local Ukrainian population.
The Ukrainian association in Lublin has already begun work to gather and publish materials about the destruction of Orthodox holy places in the Second Polish Republic in 1938. These materials are available on a specially created site.