Delegation of the UGCC honored the perished Polish chaplains

On April 19 the delegation of the UGCC, including the Bishop Mikhail (Koltun), the head of the Department of Patriarchal Curia of UGCC on matters of Pastoral Care in the Power Structures of Ukraine, and Fr. Lubomyr Yavorskiy, deputy of the head of the department, took part in the solemn prayer for the deceased military chaplains of the Republic Poland who perished in the plane crash near Smolensk. From the UGCC participating in the united prayer also took Bishop Volodymyr (Yuschak), Bishop of Wroclaw-Gdansk, and Greek Catholic military chaplains who in the military ordinariate of Poland make up a separate deanery.  The farewell to the Field Bishop Tadeusz Ploski of the Military Ordinariate and Bishop Secretary Colonel Jan Osinski took place in the Warsaw Cathedral. On this occasion the head of delegation passed sincere sympathies in the prayer of the head of the UGCC Patriarch Lubomyr. “We witnessed the unity of the entire Polish nation around this great tragedy. All the people were united and considered their value, their national identity, their own conviction in the church and faith,” noticed Bishop Mikhail (Koltun). “In the chaplaincy’s ministry in UGCC we cooperate with the field ordinariate of Poland, and this feeling of solidarity in regards to the great tragedy gave us internal spiritual communication, solidarity and sympathy which joined not only the military structures but also the faithful.” The funeral for the heads of Polish chaplaincy took place on the square before the Warsaw Cathedral of the Polish Army with the participation of a number of foreign church delegations, Polish clergy, and officers of Polish Army. After the service Bishop Mikhail (Koltun) together with Bishop Volodymyr (Yuschak) and Bishop of Wroclaw-Gdansk of the UGCC, held a prayer service for the deceased in the Byzantium rite. The priests of UGCC participated in the service. In addition, Bishop Mikhail joined the prayer which the same day took place in the Orthodox Cathedra of Warsaw for the Orthodox military ordinariate Archbishop Miron Chodakowski. The delegation of the UGCC expressed regrets concerning the loss of the General Vicar of the Roman Catholic Church (RCC), chancellor of the military curia of the RCC, and all military clergy of Poland. “We had the chance to take part in the events during which public and church representatives and Polish officers discussed the necessity of chaplaincy service for the consolidation of the nation, for its spiritual acquisitions. From one side we felt the severe loss of Polish nation, and from other the solidarity and awareness of how necessary chaplaincy is to solidify Christian values in the society and army,” reported Bishop Mikhail. We remind, that in the air crash, which occurred on April 10 near Smolensk, perished Field Bishop Tadeusz  Ploski of the Military Ordinariate, Bishop Secretary Colonel Jan Osinski, Archbishop Miron Chodakowski, Polish President's Chaplain Roman Indrzejczyk, Adam Pilch, Evangelical battlefield chaplain for the Polish army, and also the priests Bronislaw Gostomski, Joseph Jonets, Zdislaw Krol, and Andzrej Kwasnik.

Information Department of the UGCC