Vilnius district council to reconsider renaming Gulbinowicz streets

Vilnius District Municipal Council will consider for a third time on Monday whether to rename streets named after Polish cleric Henryk Gulbinowicz, who was sanctioned for sexually abusing minors, LRT reported.

The council’s previous scheduled meeting was cancelled because it lacked a quorum. All members of the Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania–Christian Families Alliance faction were absent. Mayor Robert Duchnevičius regretted that the meeting could not go ahead and said politicians should respect the work of others regardless of their political views.

The municipal administration has proposed renaming Gulbinowicz Street in the Buivydžiai eldership as Buivydžiai Street, and the street named after him in Nemenčinė as Gabriel Jan Mincewicz Street. It has resubmitted the proposals, citing good public administration practice and the need to save on legal costs.

The proposals come as the Regional Administrative Court considers a case brought by the government representative for Vilnius and Alytus counties, Gedmantė Eimontienė, who has asked the court to annul earlier decisions on the two street names.

The council rejected proposals to rename the streets in February and April. Representatives of the alliance, which holds a majority on the council, have previously opposed the changes. Duchnevičius has said he feels a moral duty to raise the issue again. He told BNS that one faction “gets instructions from Brussels on how to behave”, but that some members were tired of the dispute and might vote differently.

The mayor also said two court cases involving priests accused of sexual offences against children and possession of child pornography had further intensified the debate. He said he would continue putting the renaming proposals on the agenda if the council did not approve them for a third time.

Gulbinowicz was born in the village of Šukiškės in Vilnius District. He became archbishop of Wrocław and was made a cardinal in 1985. The Vatican sanctioned him over multiple cases of sexual abuse of minors, concealing clergy members’ paedophilia offences and 16 years of cooperation with the Polish People’s Republic security service. He died in November 2020.

The council also granted Gulbinowicz honorary citizenship of the district. It rejected a proposal to revoke the title last September.