The Polish president visited the Ecumenical Patriarch
The President of Poland Andrzej Duda visited the Orthodox Patriarchate in Istanbul on 25.05.2021, after his official visit to Ankara. During their meeting with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, Duda and his wife Agatha Kornhauser Duda talked to the patriarch, who is an old acquaintance and family friend.
Speaking after the meeting, the patriarch said: “I am not a stranger to Poland anyway. We have a small Orthodox church headed by Metropolitan Sava. I have visited the beautiful country several times at the invitation of Mr. Duda. I also received an honorary doctorate from the Catholic University and we opened a newly built Orthodox church. On my last visit in 2019, I went to Auschwitz to take part in the march of the residents. Pope John Paul II is a very important figure who has united us and our churches. “
Duda met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday. After the meeting, Duda described Turkey as Warsaw’s “strongest ally” in his region, saying he believed the two countries could repel external threats within NATO.
During the Polish president’s visit to Ankara, an agreement was signed allowing Poland to purchase 24 armed drones, becoming the first NATO member to buy such Turkish-made machines.
The Duda family later visited the village of Polonezkoy near Istanbul, founded last night by Polish emigrants fleeing retaliation after an uprising in 1830 – barely survivors of the rebels’ general battle with the Russian Empire, which lasted more than a year and a half – since January. 1830 to October 1831. In the lands seized by Austria and Prussia, they did not even manage to revolt. And after the defeat, Poland no longer existed on the map of Europe. The Hôtel Lambert in Paris was the headquarters of the Polish emigrants in Western Europe after their brutal defeat in the struggle to restore the Polish state, as the Polish emigrants, driven from their homeland by the Russian whip, were zealously supported by their compatriots-emigrants in the Ottoman capital Tchaikovsky – Sadak Pasha, M Drashki – Ata Bey et al.