On Thursday afternoon, President Andrzej Duda will attend a thanksgiving service at Gniezno Cathedral officiated by the Vatican’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, with Polish Roman Catholic bishops in attendance. In a resolution adopted unanimously by Poland’s lower house of parliament on Wednesday, MPs stressed that Mieszko’s decision to adopt Christianity enabled Poland to join “the circle of Western European civilization.” The resolution also says that it was under the banners of Christianity that Poland was able to defend Europe’s common heritage in 1683, the year of the relief of the Siege of Vienna - in which King Jan III Sobieski of Poland halted the advance of Turkish troops into Europe - and in 1920, during the Battle of Warsaw, in which Polish troops defeated an advancing Bolshevik army.
