Orthodox Church

This is a compelling interview, although the promise towards reconciliation it offered may be delayed, or worse, cut short, with the terrible airplane crash of Polish dignitaries near Moscow yesterday. They were flying to Russia to commemorate the Katyn Massacre (called “tragedy” below), and, if the interview below is accurate, look for some common ground to heal this grave wound of historical memory. I can’t help but think that an event of great promise has been lost. Certainly the crash is catastrophic for Poland, and the lost opportunity may be a grave loss for the rest of Europe. An Orthodox bishop was one of the fatalities.

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‘The task of the Russian Orthodox Church’s dialogue with the Catholic Church in Poland is to rise above political conjuncture’. Interview of DECR vice-chairman Hegumen Philip Riabykh with Blagovest-infor news agency.

Father Philip, on April 7 Russia and Poland will mark the sorrowful date, the 70^th anniversary of the Katyn tragedy. The Russian Orthodox Church will take part in this commemorative event. Please tells us what exactly will leaders of the two Slavic nations remember on this day?

The Katyn tragedy or the Katyn shooting are the names given to the execution of Polish officers who were captured in the course of the Red Army’s entry into the territory of Western Ukraine and Byelorussia in 1939. It is rather a conditional name because Polish captives were shot to death in other places, too, such as Kalinin (now Tver), Kharkov and other places in the former Soviet Union. The Katyn forest near Smolensk became a common grave for about four and a half thousand Polish officers. It is not the largest burial place since at Mednoye near Tver over six thousand Poles were buried.

However, these executions are firmly associated with Katyn as this place was discovered first, already during World War II.

April the 7^th, 1940, chosen as the commemoration day of the Katyn victims, is considered to be an estimated date of the executions near Smolensk, which continued till the middle of May.

Can we say that Katyn is a common grave only for Polish officers?
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H/T: Mystagogy

Moscow, 5 April 2010, Interfax – Fans greeted each other on Easter at a Sunday evening soccer match at Moscow Lokomotiv stadium.

At the beginning of the second half of the match thousands of fans of Dynamo team started chanting “Christ is Risen!”, an Interfax correspondent reports.

Thousands of fans of Lokomotiv teeam on the opposite side of the stadium responded by chanting “Truly He is Risen!”

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April 7, 2010

ARCHBISHOP DEMETRIOS ATTENDS EASTER PRAYER BREAKFAST AT WHITE HOUSE

WASHINGTON – His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios of America attended yesterday, an Easter Prayer Breakfast for approximately 70 Christian religious leaders at the White House, as a guest of President Barack Obama and had a seat of honor at the President’s table.

The President after welcoming the religious leaders as “brothers and sisters in Christ” said he wanted to join them and “continue the Easter celebration of our risen Savior, and to reflect on the work to which His promise calls all of us.”
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