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However, he said that the Lutheran church was trying to recover ownership from the government of the historic headquarters of its own military pastorate in Warsaw. "After having had to rely for years on a temporary site, we would appreciate a satisfactory solution to this problem, in view of the work the Lutheran church does for the Polish Army," Debski said.

"We were informed in a roundabout way about plans for the Orthodox cathedral, and if the Defense Ministry has funds available to support such projects, we hope they'll be divided fairly."

The chancellor of Poland's Catholic ministry to military personnel, Leszek Koloniecki, said the new cathedral was a "purely Orthodox matter." He added that each church's military pastorate was a "sovereign, independent entity" within the Polish Army.However, the Warsaw curia official, Grzegorz Kalwarczyk, said he believed Warsaw's Orthodox community had enough churches. "At one time, the Orthodox had a huge church at the very center of the city, which was built * on the orders of the Russian Tsar," the 58-year-old Catholic priest said. "The Orthodox follow their own paths and always have a complex about Catholics. In Russia they've opposed a visit by the Pope and done everything to stop Catholic priests going to care for their faithful."

The Catholic Church, which has three cathedrals and about 200 churches in Warsaw, is also constructing a US$50-million Church of Divine Providence in thanksgiving for the collapse of communism.

Copyright © 2000 Ecumenical News International. Used with permission.

For statistics on Poland's religion, including the Polish Orthodox Church, see Adherents.com

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January (Web-only) 2000, Vol. 44