Church leader Lazar offers condolences
The Seventh-day Adventist Church in Poland joins their countrymen in mourning the victims of the April 10 plane crash in Smolensk, Russia, in which President Lech Kaczynski and his wife, numerous government and military officials and several church representatives died.
Pawel Lazar, president of the Adventist Church in Poland, offered his condolences in a statement. "In this darkest day in the post-WWII Poland -- a tragic death for the President and First Lady, Lech and Maria Kaczynski, together with 94 other passengers and crew members of the presidential aircraft -- the believers and leadership of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Republic of Poland are uniting in sorrow and prayers with the families of the victims of this national tragedy," he wrote.
"We all are unbelievably saddened. We are praying to our Almighty and Merciful God also for the leaders of our earthly Motherland, that they may have wisdom which flows from His Throne, to stand up to the highest duty in this difficult moment and lead our nation in the right direction," Lazar wrote.
President Kaczynski led a high-ranking state delegation to participate in a 70th anniversary ceremony honoring Polish officers and civilians slain by the Soviet secret police in 1940 in and around the forest of Katyn in western Russia. Adventist believers were among the victims of the Katyn massacre.
There are about 5,700 Adventists in Poland worshiping in 120 churches.
