Polish Ambassador demands explanation from Huliaka

Ambassador of Poland to Belarus Leszek Szerepka knows nothing about the facts of alleged offences committed on the territory of Belarus by clergymen, citizens of Poland.

As stated by the head of the Polish diplomacy on February 5 during the briefing in Homel, “in your and in our country the church is a little bit different state, and we are not taking any participation here, a Vatican nuncio and the leadership of the Catholic Church in your country are dealing with that.” “I am waiting for information from Mr Huliaka, what Catholic priests exactly were meant by him in his speech,” Leszek Szerepka said.

BelaPAN reminds that recently Commissioner on Religious and Ethnic Affairs Leanid Huliaka (Leonid Gulyako), and later Alyaksandr Lukashenka as well, publicly expressed displeasure with Polish Catholic priests in Belarus. “Some Catholic priests from Poland are trying to be involved in politics. They do not like our country, our laws, our leadership… There are also such violations as holding services outside the regions where a concrete foreign priest had been given permission to serve… There are also facts of administrative offences, which are committed primarily by priests from Poland,” Leanid Huliaka said on January 22.

Catholic bishops of Belarus have expressed concern over the accusations, which they consider to be ungrounded insult of the Catholic Church, stirring up interfaith and interethnic hatred. The bishops addressed Huliaka with a request to provide concrete facts concerning the accusations made, and offered to discuss similar problems directly with them in the future.

On February 5 Leszek Szerepka visits Homel. As said by him, the main objective of the visit is participation in the opening ceremony of the exhibition “Andrei Strumillo. Paintings”, organized with the assistance of the Polish Institute in Minsk. The exhibition is to be opened in the museum of the Palace of the Rumiantsevs and Paskevichs in Homel. In addition, the head of the diplomatic agency is to meet with the leadership of the region and the city and to hold an open discussion with students of Homel State University named after Francis Skaryna.