The festival’s opening concert on Monday night was attended by senior Orthodox Church officials as well as representatives from the Catholic Church and a host of central and local government officials, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
Deputy Prime Minister Jacek Sasin told the event that “the Orthodox community and the Orthodox Church of Poland” could expect to benefit from various forms of support from the Polish government in their endavours.
He said: “All Polish people are equally important, regardless of their religion, tradition and culture.”
Sasin added: “We are all citizens of a free and tolerant Republic of Poland and we enjoy full freedom in cultivating our own religion, traditions and culture.”
He hailed "the significant contribution of Christian Orthodox Poles to the history and culture of the nation," saying that "a great many Polish heroes came from the Christian Orthodox religious community."
Sasin referred to Poland's history as a "multi-ethnic, multi-religion and multicultural country," the PAP news agency reported.
He said Poland was for centuries "an oasis in a Europe full of hate, religious wars and cruelty.”
Sasin told the gathering: “We are proud of this history, this legacy, and we want to remember it as we launch the 2023 Hajnówka Days of Christian Orthodox Music festival.”
Hajnówka Days of Christian Orthodox Music
The 2023 Hajnówka Days of Christian Orthodox Music event officially began with a concert by last year’s top prize winners, the Accolada Chamber Choir from Riga, Latvia.
Seventeen choirs are vying for prizes this year, including many parish ensembles, as is the festival’s tradition, organisers said.
The choirs represent Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Finland, Serbia and Romania. For the second year running, there are no contestants from Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, due to the Kremlin’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, according to officials.
The festival performances will take place on Thursday and Friday, and the winners will be announced on Saturday, the PAP news agency reported.
Audiences can also choose from a variety of fringe events, including exhibitions about Orthodox Christianity, organisers said.
The Hajnówka Days of Christian Orthodox Music festival has been held under various names for more than 40 years.
Organised under the auspices of the Orthodox Church of Poland, it takes place in the town of Hajnówka in Poland's eastern Podlaskie region, which is the heartland of the country’s Christian Orthodox community, the PAP news agency reported.
Tuesday is day 440 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
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Source: PAP, dziennik.pl
