Weekly Column: Protestant church in Poland could have done more for refugees

*“We do not agree with the appropriation of our body”, “This is pure barbarism”, “This is women’s hell”, “I would rather abort my government”.* I read these slogans on my friends’ Facebook posts last autumn. And it was not so much the slogans that shocked me, as the fact who posted them.

It was the first time this friend of mine visited me in Krakow. I told him, I would take him to Kazimierz, the Jewish quarter. It was on a Saturday. My friend asked me why bother going there if everything would be closed on the Jewish holy day. I was confused for a minute and then suddenly connected the dots saying: No, my friend! It is indeed called a “Jewish quarter” but not because Jews live there today. It is called so because of the history of that part of the city!

The theologian Oleksii Blyzniuk was in his home in Kyiv when the war broke out. What to do? He and his wife decided to leave in western direction, to Lviv. There is he staying now.