UGCC expects Poland to be Ukraine’s strategic partner and advocate

UGCC Head Patriarch Sviatoslav expresses hope that the newly elected President of Poland Andrzej Duda will maintain friendly, good-neighborly relations with Ukraine.

The UGCC Primate stated this in an interview with the Catholic news agencygiven during his visit to Poland on June 8-9.

“We expect, the Patriarch said, “that Poland will be our strategic partner and advocate in the European Union".

“Our hearts were overfilled with sharp pain when the plane crashed in Smolensk in 2010, and Polish elites representatives together with President Lech Kaczynski were killed. It is important to know the whole truth about this disaster. We must tell the truth about what is happening in Ukraine. Only the truth can heal and unite us,” said the head of the church.

The patriarch invited the Polish President to visit Ukraine as soon as possible. “This year the Bishops' Conferencesin Poland and Germany will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the exchange of messages of reconciliation and forgiveness between the two countries. It is in the context of this historic event that we have to consider the Polish-Ukrainian relations,”the patriarchsays.

"We must,” he continued, “not only look at the past, but build up our future. We are to make yet another step forward in this spirit in Poland and Ukraineso that reconciliation was not the only initiative of a few bishops of the two sides, but also urged a common movementin our relations that we understand that the free Ukraine is crucial for the free Poland and vice versa. Today both our and your freedom is at stake!”

It was reported by the Information Department of the UGCC.