Knowing each other better

“Europe is first of all the spirit of a Christian culture. There are precise values that bind the peoples together, beyond laws and treaties: human dignity, family, solidarity, subsidiarity, social justice. The process we are witnessing is one that enables us to enlarge this spiritual core that is typical of Europe. The diversity given by the various national cultures shows us, however, that a new integration is needed”. Archbishop Stanislav Hocevar, Metropolitan of Belgrade and President of the international “Saints Cyril and Methodius” Bishops’ Conference, which comprises the Churches of Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Kosovo, is convinced of this need. In recent days Mgr. Hocevar was in Modena (in Italy), where he presided over an ecumenical vigil as part of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. We met him there to discuss with him questions of Europe, mutual understanding and dialogue.Mgr. Hocevar, do you think we need to know the culture of Eastern Europe better?“Europe still remains divided between East and West, and has been ever since the second century AD. The frontier initially was merely administrative; then, with the split of the empire into two parts, the distance between Rome and Constantinople, the Crusades, and the birth of national states, it increasingly became an area of conflict between the two parts, and continued to do so even after the Second World War. The political ‘springtime’, after the end of the cold war, only re-opened all the wounds of the past, which had never been healed. Today we live in a period of mutual understanding and are invited not only to know each other better, but also to transform the conflicts into collaboration”.John Paul II used the metaphor of the two lungs in speaking of the two parts of Europe…“The poet Vjaceslav Ivanov in 1924, during a journey to Italy, wrote precisely that: that Europe must breathe with both its lungs, East and West, and this image was often revived by John Paul II. That’s why divided Christendom must today set a great example, in the search for unity and cooperation. It will only be possible to create a real European Union through genuine collaboration between the Churches. We have a great ‘kairós’ before us: in a time of globalization the peoples of Europe must work together, because otherwise an opening to other continents and dialogue with them would fail”.We know little or nothing of the history of the former Yugoslavia, and its lands, in spite of a war fought just a few kilometres from out homes…“Yugoslavia was divided internally between Eastern and Western culture. Recognizing this helps, for example, to understand why, after the fall of the totalitarian regime, the country’s disintegration was so rapid and painful. The martyrs we had during and after the Second World War enabled us, by their blood, to preserve the faith and give birth to new vocations. The Orthodox tradition preserved in a clearer manner the synthesis, the living bond, between Christianity and national culture, and that’s why totalitarianism was unable to destroy the spirit of the people. The challenge today is also posed by the birth, in the new Republics, of the Bishops’ Conferences of Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia”.How does the Catholic Church of Serbia live today?“It’s a minority Church: Catholics in Serbia amount to 480,000, 5% of the population, subdivided into 14 ethnic and linguistic minorities and two rites. And we are poor in educational structures, because our schools and seminaries were mainly in Slovenia and Croatia. The West is ignorant of this situation: for us ecumenical dialogue is an everyday need; we are a country of encounter”.In the West at the present time a strong need is felt for dialogue with Islam: what’s your view?“If Christendom rediscovers its roots, its enthusiasm, then it will no longer fight with weapons of war. Instead, confrontation, and exchange, will be at the level of the spirit, and wherever there’s spirit there’s freedom. Christians must rediscover the gift of unity, of being spiritually strong in transmitting the culture of life; they must propagate the noblest values of their faith. By failing to practice the evangelical spirit in our lives, we destroy life itself, making way for negative tendencies, such as secularization, the debasing of ourselves to minimum values”.What, in conclusion, is the first thing we should pay attention to?“I invite you first of all to open yourself to the East: come and visit our countries, meet us. In this way we can mutually enrich each other: you have important structures of charity; we have a rich liturgical tradition: so together we can be complementary. The meeting between Western religious and oriental monks would for example be interesting. But an important anniversary awaits us in 2013: the 1700th anniversary of the Edict of Milan, in which Constantine recognized freedom of religion and human dignity. In this way he de facto recognized that Christianity is the future of Europe and of the world. A new Christian springtime could help Europe better to play its historic mission: close collaboration between East and West will not be a loss for anyone, but rather a mutual enrichment”.