photo - magda jensen

The planned move of a cross commemorating the victims of the Smolensk air disaster outside the Presidential Palace to a nearby church has been delayed, after hundreds of protestors scuffled with police, Tuesday afternoon.

A spokesperson from the Presidential Palace confirmed that the Smolensk cross would stay where it is, for the time being.

The protesters - the self styled ‘Defenders of the Cross’ – turned up in their hundreds, if not thousands, this morning in the centre of Warsaw. Tempers frayed as the time for the cross’s removal, 13.00 CET, grew nearer.

As the moment finally came, protestors tried to break through police lines. One man was hauled out of the crowd as what looked like pepper spray was thrown. [Later it was identified as being sprayed by police and was, in fact, tear gas]. Another, carrying his own smaller cross, was taken away as the crowd chanted “Defend the cross…”.

Priests called for calm.

After consultations between church and state officials it was announced that the cross – placed in front of the Presidential Palace by scouts in the wake of the Smolensk disaster of April 10, which killed President Lech Kaczynski and 95 others – would not be moved to the nearby St Anne’s church as had been planned.

The future of the cross and where it will be housed is now unclear.

Political cross

President-elect Bronislaw Komorowski had ordered the cross be moved from outside the Presidential Palace where it was put up by scouts during the period of national mourning following the death of Lech Kaczynski and 95 others in the Smolensk air disaster on April 10.

The Presidential Palace, the national scout movement and Poland’s Roman Catholic church establishment had agreed that a cross in memory of the Smolensk victims was better situated in a religious place and not outside the residents of a secular head of state.

But opposition MPs from the conservative-nationalist Law and Justice party disagree, despite calls form the Roman Catholic church for it to be removed.

"The site [of the cross] was chosen by the people," Law and Justice party spokesperson Mariusz Błaszczak told Polish Radio.

Former leftwing speaker of the Lower House of Parliament Tomasz Nałęcz says the Law and Justice party wants turn the Presidential Palace into a religious shrine in memory of Lech Kaczynski, one of the founders of the party.

"I believe that the Law and Justice, especially [party leader and Lech’s twin brother] Jarosław Kaczyński, is striving for the sacralisation and monumentalisation of the presidency of Lech Kaczyński before the judgment of history. The burial of the presidential couple at the Wawel Castle in Kraków was the first step taken in this direction," he said.

The cross will be taken on a pilgrimage to Czestochowa, the site of Poland’s most holiest shrine, on Thursday and will then be returned to St Anne’s church in Warsaw. (pg)