POLAND AND HER UKRAINIAN MINORITY [To the Editor of THE
SPECTATOR]
Sin,—At a time when we are assailed from all sides with appeals from the politically oppressed: when we ourselves are spiritually oppressed with accounts of widespread injustice and brutality, it is with some hesitation that I raise the banner of yet another cause. Yet in this I feel justified, for it is one that has received no publicity, since the facts have been almost totally suppressed.
I write of a campaign of forced " conversion " now being waged by the Poles of the Roman Catholic Church against the Ukrainians of the Orthodox and Greek Catholic com- munions. To embark upon the complex political and ecclesias- tical issues involved is not here possible ; it must suffice to say that the campaign forms part of an anti-Ukrainian drive of the Polish State, that is aimed at the ultimate extinction of that stronghold of Ukrainian culture—the Byzantine Rite which is used by both Orthodox and Greek Catholics.
Orthodox churches have been demolished or appropriated, and their lands confiscated by the Polish State for the use of the Poles. Said Mr. Baran, M.P. at a session of the Seym on July 6th, " Out of 35o Orthodox churches in the Podlassie and Chelm (Kholm) districts 15o have been changed into Latin, although not a tenth of them belonged originally to the (Roman) Catholics." Again, at a Conference of the Orthodox hierarchy on July 1st, delegates from Grubieszov (Hrubeshiv) reported the demolition under civil and police supervision of large numbers of churches, in some cases together with their presbyteries.
The chief organ of the actual " conversion " (of the Orthodox) is a so-called Co-ordination Committee, consisting of represen- tatives of the Polish clergy, the Polish Riflemen, the Polish School Teachers Association, &c. The methods used in the " conversion " of both Orthodox and Greek Catholics include promise or refusal of work to the unemployed ; granting or withholding of permits to buy land to the land-hungry, and guarantees of exemption from civil penalties to those who will change their Church or Rite. Again, to quote Mr. Baran : " It is not possible for a Ukrainian to buy land, as he will never receive permission . . . . There is only one hope, for his whole family to change their Rite." Needless to say, this proselytism is in flagrant violation of the Polish under- taking to guarantee the rights of the Minorities : also of the Polish Constitution itself. In regard to the Greek Catholics it is, also a violation of the Concordat between Rome and Poland, of 1925, which forbids change of rite from Greek Catholic to Latin without special permission of the Holy See.
May I express the hope that Englishmen, who have not been backward in protesting against political, racial, and religious persecutions elsewhere, will concern themselves with the politico-religious persecution in Poland?—Yours very truly,
HUGO YARDLEY
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