The 1700th anniversary of the imperial Edict of Milan (in 313) will be celebrated at Nis (Serbia), the city in which the emperor Constantine was born, in 2013. The Edict recognized the free and full citizenship of the Catholic religion over the whole of the territory of the Roman Empire, both East and West. This important anniversary was discussed in the Serbian city in recent days, during the visit by the archbishop of Genoa, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone who, together with Archbishop Stanislav Hocevar of Belgrade, blessed the town’s renovated parish church. The coincidence of the blessing of the church with the memory of the dedication of the Lateran basilica in Rome, first cathedral of the Pope, built by the emperor Constantine in the third century, permitted Cardinal Bertone to link past and present in the prospect of a Europe that may increasingly “breathe with both lungs”, to use an expression dear to John Paul II. The archbishop of Genoa’s visit to Serbia also took place to inaugurate a Caritas centre at Aleksinac, realized thanks to the donations of the dioceses of Liguria. Cardinal Bertone met the patriarch of the Orthodox Church, Pavle, who thanked him because Italian Caritas had supported the reconstruction of a seminary for the training of Orthodox clergy. Serbia has an Orthodox majority (64%), Muslims comprise 19% and Catholics 6% of the population.
