The great white mantle

René Rémond died in Paris at the age of 88 on 14 April. Catholic intellectual, historian and political analyst, Rémond was rector of Paris-Nanterre University, President of the French Foundation of Political Sciences and member of the Academie Française. “He was a great Christian and a true humanist”, said Archbishop Jean-Pierre Ricard, President of the French Bishops’ Conference. Recalling the historian’s address to the assembly of French bishops in 2003, Ricard added: “He fervently hoped that the message of the Gospel, which he practised in his life, could reach our contemporaries in a clear language”. As a tribute to him we cite below a passage on Christianity and Europe from Ricard’s book “Religion et societé en Europe”. Of all the continents, Europe in its attitude to religion presents an originality that is of capital importance: it is the only one to have been totally christianised. It wasn’t the first to be evangelised: Christianity was born in the Near East and the first Churches were founded in Asia; but these later disappeared. The penetration of the Gospel in Europe was not slow in coming: when St. Paul was still alive, churches were registered at Corinth, in Thessalonica… In Gaul the first Christian communities were probably already formed in the second century in Provence and in the Rhone valley. The Edict of Milan (313) officially recognized the existence of Christianity throughout the Roman Empire, and in the late 4th century Theodosius turned it into the State religion, suspending the imperial cult and proscribing the pagan cults. The Church of the British Isles would arrive a little later, but by the 6th century Christianity had reached all the territories that had shortly beforehand been incorporated in the Roman Empire. The christianisation of the rest of Europe would be accomplished in a second wave, four or five hundred years later, in the 9th and 10th centuries: by the year 1000 the sovereigns of Poland, Hungary, Russia and Scandinavia, by converting to Christianity, brought with them their own peoples to baptism… Today there is no country in Europe whose conversion to Christianity is less than a millennium old. For many of these peoples conversion was the founding event of their nation: as it was for individuals, for whom baptism once marked the entry into existence: for these peoples too birth and baptism coincided. To this day they date the foundation of their nation from the conversion of their sovereign. By celebrating on 20 August each year the feast of St. Stephen, who was consecrated by the Pope on Christmas Day of the year 1000, Hungary commemorates the founder of the state and recalls the birth of the nation. Even the Soviet rulers solemnly celebrated the millennium of the baptism of Viadimir, Grand Prince of Kiev (987), as the founding moment of the birth of Russia. In this way a very strong link has been forged between religion and national identity; it would play a major role in the 19th century, in the movement with which the nations liberated themselves. Still today this identification remains a geopolitical factor and a key to understanding international relations in a part of the continent. The common Christian bond is an essential component of the European identity. It distinguishes Europe from the other continents. This would be attenuated with the missionary movement through which Europe would bring its faith to other worlds. Christianity has left its mark on the continent. Europe has been covered with a great white mantle of churches. Monasteries were founded all over the continent; their monks helped to till the land. The Christian monuments with which the continent was dotted ranged from humble crosses erected at the crossroads to the loftiest cathedrals and basilicas.