The Transfiguration of Christ, one of the Great Feasts of the Orthodox Church, was celebrated on Sunday on the Holy Mount of Grabarka, eastern Poland, the traditional pilgrimage centre for Orthodox Christians in the country.
Some 30,000 faithful took part in the celebrations, according to police estimates. This annual event is the key religious ceremony at Grabarka.
President Andrzej Duda, in a letter addressed to the participants of the Sunday feast, noted that he had taken part in the Transfiguration of Christ celebrations at this sanctuary in 2015, in the first weeks after taking the office.
"Through that meeting and common prayer, I wanted to emphasise my deep conviction that the spiritual tradition the faithful of the Orthodox Church have been cultivating here for centuries is an integral part of the heritage of our homeland," the president wrote. "Today I want to fully maintain and repeat that message," he added.
Andrzej Duda emphasised that Poland "rightly boasts the fact that it has always been a state of many nations and religions". Referring to Poland's independence centenary, the president pointed out that "a hundred years ago, Poles, Belarusians, Ukrainians and other Orthodox believers were fighting, shoulder to shoulder, for their own sovereign state."
The main service was conducted on Saturday by the Superior of the Polish Autocephalic Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Archbishop Sawa, the Head of the American Orthodox Church, Archbishop of Washington and Metropolitan of All America and Canada, the Most Blessed Tikhon as well as Polish and foreign religious hierarchs.
This is Archbishop Tikhon's first visit to Poland. The main point of the 6-day visit is attendance at the Mount Grabarka ceremonies. The American archbishop is also scheduled to visit sites in Podlaskie province, home to most of Poland's Orthodox faithful, including Hajnówka and Bielsk Podlaski as well as monasteries in Zwierki and Supraśl. Visits to the Białowieża Forest and the former German Nazi concentration camp of Majdanek are also planned.
In past years, guests at the Grabarka ceremonies have been hierarchs of the eastern church, including the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I, Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Cyryl of Moscow and Patriarch John X of Antioch.
The Holy Mount of Grabarka is considered to be the holiest location in Poland for Orthodox Christians. It is the site of the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord and is home to the women's monastery of Ss. Marta and Maria. The most prominent and well-known feature of Grabarka is the forest of crosses surrounding the church, all brought to the Mount by pilgrims. Grabarka has been a centre of pilgrimage for Orthodox Christians from Poland and other countries since the 18th century.
The Orthodox Church in Poland estimates the number of its faithful at 450,000-500,000. In the latest national census some 156,000 Polish people declared they were Orthodox Christians.
Autor: gf / Źródło: TVN24 International, PAP