“The Smolensk disaster brought home the value and price of love, memory, homeland,” Gdańsk Metropolitan, Archbishop Leszek Slawoj Głódź said during the Easter homily delivered on Sunday morning at the Basilica-Cathedral of Gdańsk-Oliwa.

The archbishop appealed for a return to “social harmony” in Poland over a year after the crash in western Russia.

At the cathedral in Gniezno, the ancient site of the Polish Roman Catholic church, Primate Archbishop Jozef Kowalczyk said Resurrection Mass, as did Metropolitan of Warsaw, Cardinal Kazimierz Nycz, who celebrated Easter Mass at St. Joseph’s in Ursus on the outskirts of the capital.

At 11.00 CET Cardinal Nycz celebrated mass  at St. John’s cathedral in Warsaw.

In Krakow, Easter Sunday mass was led at 10.00 CET by Archbishop of Krakow Stanislaw Dziwisz at Wawel Cathedral.

Yesterday, many Poles attended the "blessing of the basket" at churches around the country, with the priest attending the basket left by the faithful full of eggs, bread, cake, salt, paper and white sausage, marking the end of Lent.

On Sunday morning, families sit down to Easter Breakfast, with the table heaving under the weight of items blessed by the priest on Saturday. (pg)