Common roots” “

“The Christian roots, which our “European weeks” have helped to document and make known, are beyond question: the problem of their recognition is in fact “political”, not historical”. That is the clear and determined way in which Msgr. Giuseppe Colombo , chairman of the standing Committee of the Paul VI Ambrosian Foundation in Milan, expresses his view on the preamble to the recently approved EU Constitution. In his introductory address to the 26th Week of Culture at Villa Cagnola, Gazzada (Varese), dedicated to the “Religious history of Croatia and Slovenia”, the bishop recurred to the problem of the citation of the Christian heritage in the European Constitution, vigorously underlining the position supported by John Paul II. Researchers from all over EUROPE TRY TO “UNDERSTAND” THE BALKANS. A hundred or so academics, meeting in the little town of Gazzada, nestling in the foothills of the Alps in Lombardy, reviewed the religious situation of the Slav Balkans in its three main components: Catholic, Orthodox and Islamic. Croatian, Slovene and Italian professors, and researchers from various countries, attended the conference held from 31 August to 4 September. They examined “the various national identities and threw light on the millennial history of these communities, underwritten by common languages and literatures, and by shared civil values, without concealing the fact that “countries with a marked religious majority do not limit themselves to professing their religion at home: they export it abroad, for reasons of apostolate, but also of political power”. This history, with all its positive and negative sides, can be traced back to the period between the seventh and eighth century AD, marked by “silent” phenomena of inculturation, tragic wartime events, great witnesses of holiness, loss and bewilderment, and new certainties in the attempt to bring the Gospel to one of the most turbulent areas of the old continent. “The religious history of the Balkans – points out the scientific coordinator of the conference, Sante Graciotti, of the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome – is particularly fraught, because the various confessions have spread to a considerable degree in a leopard-spot configuration, just like the ethnic groups of which they are the expression. This is due to the fact that the Balkans have been ruled for lengthy periods by multiethnic states, such as the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires, and for more limited periods, and over a more limited area, by Venice”. CLOSE RELATIONS BETWEEN FAITH AND NATIONAL IDENTITY. For his part Josip Bratulic, of the University of Zagreb, adds: “In spite of the fact that the christianisation of the Croats and Slovenes involved some specific historical differences between the two peoples, the fact remains that the respective process of their evangelization had, at least initially, common points of departure and sources. From the time of their original settlement in their present-day national territories, the two peoples belonged to the Western sphere of Christianity and this belonging determined their religious life, their culture and the very essence of their nationality in a profound and radical way”. The frontier between Orthodoxy and Catholicism, between East and West, ran through just these territories. But the specific differences between the “heirs” of Byzantium and Rome have not always been clear-cut: anthropological and cultural propinquity has often led to fruitful phases of interaction, as well as to sometimes bloody conflicts. FROM THE MIDDLE AGES TO THE COLLAPSE OF COMMUNISM. It is a complex history. It reveals the richness of the Christian presence since medieval times in these areas in which believers still remain numerous and active in the religious life of their respective countries, “with a tenacious ecumenical will” and the aspiration to be part of a pacified Europe after the recent wars that have caused (and are still causing) so much suffering in the Balkan region. The main speakers at the “European Week” included Miran Spelic (University of Ljubljana), who spoke of the christianisation of the Slovene population, Vocko Kapitanovic (Split), who explained the role of the Franciscans in Bosnia, and Zdenko Tensek (Zagreb), who tackled the question of ecumenism in the aftermath of the last Serb-Croatian-Slovene war. During the conference the names of Saints Cyril and Methodius, co-patrons of Europe, missionaries of the faith in the Balkans, were frequently mentioned. Discussion also focused on art, educational and cultural structures, charitable ventures, the press and numerous other Christian presences that still characterize the Slovene-Croatian region today.