Roman and Greek Catholic Hierarchs Pray Together At Lviv Cemetery

On 1 November 2002, Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, and Cardinal Marian Jaworski, metropolitan of the Roman Catholic Church in Ukraine, held a joint prayer service at the Lychakivskyi Cemetery in Lviv. The two cardinals prayed that all the Ukrainian and Polish soldiers who died in the war of 1918-1919 between Ukraine and Poland would be honored. This was another step towards dialogue, mutual understanding and alleviation of the crisis in relations between the two nations, which arose over military burial places at the Lychakivskyi Cemetery.
After the prayer, a cross was laid between the Polish and Ukrainian memorials as a symbol of reconciliation. Hundreds of Roman and Greek Catholic faithful came to the cemetery to take part in the ceremony. In his address, Cardinal Husar stressed that Christian reconciliation and forgiveness should become a first priority, because we cannot let the same thing happen again. On the contrary, he said we should exert every possible effort to consolidate the two nations. Cardinal Jaworski called this ecumenical event in Lviv a sign which testifies to the positive results that the two nations can achieve, regardless of some tragic pages in their common history. On the same day, a round-table discussion entitled “What Do We Do With Our History?” was held in the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) in Lviv. Prof. Myroslav Marynovych, Vice-Rector of External Affairs at UCU, initiated the discussion. He stressed that the problems with the Polish military burial places in Lviv should be shifted from the political to the Christian dimension, because the Christian perception of problems presupposes forgiveness and conflict-free resolution. The conflict over the Polish military burial places arose in May 2002 after the municipal authorities in Lviv and the Polish side disagreed on the wording of the inscription on the Polish memorial at the Lychakivskyi Cemetery.