Cross is moved to its final resting place; photo - PAPThe controversial Smolensk cross has been relocated from the Presidential Palace chapel to St Anne’s church just down the road in Warsaw, in a move hinted at earlier by President Komorowski.
The rector of St Anne’s church confirmed to journalists that the cross – originally planted outside the Presidential Palace by scouts following the air crash in April near Smolensk that killed 96 including President Lech Kaczynski – was moved at around 10.00 CET this morning.
The relocation of the cross comes exactly seven months after the Smolensk disaster.
The cross became the centerpiece of a political conflict between supporters of the Law and Justice party on one side and President Komorowski, the government and secular politicians on the other over the place of religious symbols in public places.
On September 16 authorities moved the cross to inside the Presidential Palace in a surprise move that angered self-styled ‘Defenders of the Cross’ who wanted the it to be made a permanent memorial outside the palace in memory of Lech Kaczynski and wife Maria.
On Monday evening President Bronislaw Komorowski said in an interview with the TVP public television channel that the cross would be moved to St Anne’s church – as agreed during the summer with Poland’s Roman Catholic church officials – sometime in the future, though he refused to say exactly when. (pg)