Polish wooden wonders poised to join UNESCO list

St Paraskeva Greek Catholic church in Kwiatoń: photo - wikicommons

UNESCO inspectors based in Paris will review a further eight houses of worship in western Ukraine.

All of the buildings are Greek Catholic churches (Cerkwie), with the Polish candidates divided between the Malopolska and Podkarpackie provinces.

Many Greek Catholic monuments in Poland fell into disrepair following deportations of ethnic minorities in the wake of the Second World War.

Rural communities of Greek Catholics were resettled in the so-called Operation Vistula of 1947, an action led by Poland's communist authorities.

Operation Vistula was designed to deprive the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) of its alleged support base among the Greek Catholic communities of southern Poland.

Most of those resettled were transported to former German territories that Poland was awarded after World War II. Poland itself had been deprived of its pre-war eastern territories at the Yalta Conference of February 1945.

Prior to Operation Vistula, about 450,000 Greek Catholics had already been resettled within the new Ukrainian borders (1944-1946), likewise about 2 million (mainly Roman Catholics) were moved from the former eastern territories to the new Poland.

Some six Roman Catholic wooden churches in southern Poland are already on the UNESCO list.

The Greek Catholic candidates are at Kwiaton, Owczary, Powroznik and Brunary (Malopolska), as well Chotyn, Radruz, Smolnik and Turzansk (Podkarpackie). (nh)