The Smolensk cross has been relocated this week from the Presidential Palace chapel  to the nearby St Anne’s church. The move puts an end to a long controversial row. The Catholic Church had accused Poland’s politicians of politicizing the matter.

 The cross was the centerpiece of a conflict between supporters of the Law and Justice party (PiS) on one side and President Komorowski, the government and secular politicians on the other over the place of religious symbols in public places. It was erected in April by the Scouts as a symbol of mourning after the death of President Lech Kaczynski, his wife, and 94 others onboard the plane crashed on landing at Smolensk Severny airport in Russia.

  Later in summer,  the cross was  relocated from outside the Presidential Palace to the palace chapel, in a surprise move which angered protestors who wanted the cross to remain where it was.   Following the attempt on 3 August to move it further to St. Anne’s church, just down the road, – when police clashed with protestors – it was decided the cross would be taken on a Pilgrimage leaving two days later to the holy shrine of Jasna Gora in the southern city of Czestochowa, also without success.

 Groups of elderly Kaczynski supporters kept guard round the clock for several days to prevent its removal, accusing Komorowski, the Prime Minister Tusk and Civic Platform (PO) of betraying Poland and the Catholic faith. A hard-line group, the so-called “Defenders of the Cross“, opposed any decision unless a permanent memorial would have been installed. Some 77% of Poles surveyed by stats researcher GfK Polonia for Rzeczpospolita daily saw the cross relocation to the presidential chapel as the right decision.

 According to a joint statement by the President’s Chancellery, Warsaw diocese, a scout organisation “the Academic Church of  St Anne in Warsaw, a place strongly bound to the history of … Poland. This temple is the site of permanent prayers for the tragically perished President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and all victims of the Smolensk catastrophe.”