Patriarch Sviatoslav to Announce Statement on Volyn Tragedy Together with Archbishop Jozef Michalik

A joint declaration of the Catholic Church in Poland and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Volyn tragedy will be announced during a visit to Poland by the head of the UGCC Sviatoslav Shevchuk.

One of the main events of the patriarch’s visits to Poland will be a memorial service for those killed in Volyn in 1943, which will be held in the Basilian Church of the Assumption of Our Lady in Warsaw.

Participating with Patriarch Sviatoslav Shevchuk will be three Ukrainian Greek Catholic metropolitans and Polish archbishops, as well as Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski. The memorial service will be held in Warsaw on June 27, the Catholic Observer reports.

Then, in the Belweder Palace of head of the UGCC will meet with the President of Poland.

The next day, June 28, on the premises of the Polish Episcopal Conference in Warsaw a joint statement on the eve of the 70th anniversary commemoration of the Volyn tragedy will be announced. The statement was signed by Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, on behalf of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, and Archbishop Jozef Michalik of the Catholic Church in Poland. This document will be another part of the Polish-Ukrainian reconciliation on which the Catholic Church in Poland and the Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine have worked for 25 years.