Svoboda member and schismatic set out provocation at Polish cemetery

A Svoboda member and a schismatic set out a provocation at a Polish cemetery

The memorial panikhida was being served for the hundreds of Ukrainians who fell victim to the Polish Army Krajowa on March 10, 1944, writes "Volyn Online".

The scandal occurred on March 10 at a cemetery in the eastern Poland village of Sahryń when a representative of the schismatic "Kiev Patriarchate", "Metropolitan" Michael Zinkevich, offered to concelebrate the panikhida with the priests of the canonical Polish Orthodox Church. The priests refused, stating they could not serve with schismatics.

The annoyed Alexander Pirozhik, the Deputy Chairman of the Volyn branch of the nationalist party "Svoboda" and the First Deputy Chairman of the Regional Council, who brought the "metropolitan" with him, called the Polish clergymen "Pro-Moscow priests", who "twitched and fidgeted like those sinners for whom oil was poured on the fire". He further explained the priests’ refusal to serve with schismatics as their unwillingness to hear prayers read in Ukrainian.

Having heard the names of Stephen Bandera and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, someone at the cemetery called the police, as “Bandera ideology” was recently made illegal in Poland. The police arrived and recorded the violation. Pirozhik stated: “I am a follower of Bandera, and I’m proud of it. Every word said in public I’m ready to confirm.”

On March 10, 1944, the militants of the Polish Army Krajowa carried out an action in the village of Sahryń to exterminate the local population. In our time, the names of 651 dead residents of the village of Sahryń have been identified, but they assume that the number of victims has reached 1,300 people. In coordination with the Polish authorities, the cemetery was arranged, and in 2009 a memorial to the dead was erected on the site of the tragic events. The causes of events are still under investigations. Veterans of the AK claimed that the massacre was carried out to prevent actions against the Poles from the UIA.

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