On Sunday, 13 July, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski confirmed reports from the Polish news outlet Głosznadniemna.pl, a Belarus-based media platform serving the Polish community, that a church organ presented in 2018 by the minister to Bishop Kazimierz Wielkosielec has now been installed in Lahishyn, a town in southwestern Belarus.
The gift from Poland’s foreign minister to the Pinsk Diocese of the Roman Catholic Church in Belarus has been installed at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lahishyn, Queen of Polesia.
Cultural gift from Polish diplomat finds new life after years of delay
“Challenging circumstances over the past seven years prevented Polish craftsmen from installing the instrument, which remained in Lahishyn all this time and was only set up this year by local parishioners,” wrote Александр Бурделёв, artistic director of the Ars Magna Organi festival currently underway in Belarus, who was invited to advise on the installation.
В Беларуси появился новый орга́н. В Логишинском костёле Св. Петра и Павла завершилась установка орга́на 2005 года...
Opublikowany przez Александр Бурделёв Piątek, 11 lipca 2025
Before being placed in the Marian shrine in Lahishyn, the organ had stood for many years in a central spot in the private residence of Radosław Sikorski and his wife, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anne Applebaum, in Chobielin, northwestern Poland.
A formal consecration ceremony for the organ, donated by the Polish minister, is scheduled for next Saturday, 26 July 2025. After the blessing, the first concert will be performed as part of the Ars Magna Organi festival.
According to Бурделёв, Minister Sikorski’s gift is an important cultural addition for the country, as the total number of pipe organs in Belarus has been estimated at just 123.
FM Sikorski responds to controversial remarks by Polish bishop
Earlier on Sunday, Poland’s top diplomat briefly addressed the controversy surrounding remarks made by a Polish clergyman at Jasna Góra, the country’s most important Catholic shrine, during an event organized by a far-right milieu closely associated with Radio Maryja - a media outlet repeatedly condemned by the Vatican.
In his sermon, retired Bishop Wiesław Mering, a senior cleric who for years has faced allegations - denied by him - of collaborating with communist-era secret police, claimed that Poland is “ruled by people who describe themselves as Germans.”
“I would politely inform Bishop Mering that my family connection to Germans is that my grandmother’s brother, Canon Roman Zientarski, spent five years imprisoned in Dachau, bunk to bunk with Blessed Michał Kozal, your predecessor,” Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said.
“As for inciting hostility toward refugees in the name of a church whose founder was himself a refugee, I consider that intellectually inconsistent,” he added.
On Tuesday, Poland's Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that the Polish Ambassador to the Vatican delivered a formal demarche to Javier Domingo Fernández González, Chief of Protocol, expressing Poland’s strong objection to recent unacceptable remarks made by certain bishops.
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Source: MSZ/X/@sikorskiradek/facebook.com/aleksandr.burdelev/znadniemna.pl