A memorial complex dedicated to three victims of Soviet repression from Ukraine, Lithuania, and Poland was dismantled at the Prince Vladimir Cemetery in the Russian city of Vladimir.
Greek Catholic priest Ilya Astapov reported this on his Facebook page.
The memorial was dedicated to the Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytskyi’s brother Klimentii Sheptytskyi, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania and the Catholic Archbishop Mechyslovas Reinis, as well as the Polish politician, one of the organizers of the Warsaw Uprising, Jan Jankowski.
The memorial was erected on the site of a mass grave – all the victims buried there had died in the high security prison “Vladimirskiy Central”, near which the cemetery is located.
The brother of the UGCC Metropolitan Andriy Sheptytsky was repressed in 1947 for refusing to cooperate with the Soviet authorities. In 1995, Klymentiy Sheptytskyi was declared by the Yad Vashem Israeli Holocaust Research Center the Righteous Among the Nations for saving the Jews during the Second World War, and in 2001 he was canonized among the Blesseds of the Catholic Church.
Mechyslovas Reinis and Jan Jankowski were arrested and died in prison for refusing to cooperate with the USSR, which had taken over Lithuania and Poland, and defending the interests of their peoples.
Who decided to dismantle the memorial is currently unknown.
