Bridges for Europe

On Saturday 24 and on Sunday 25 July 2010 the civil and religious commemoration of the Russian war prisoners who died in 1916 under the snow while building a road over the Vršiè pass was celebrated in the parish church of Kranjska gora, near the Russian chapel located under the Vršiè pass in the Alpine region of Slovenia. Russian and Slovenian delegations, along with representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church led by archbishop Philip of Poltava and Mirgorod, and by the president of the Slovenian Bishops’ Conference and Metropolitan archbishop of Ljubljana Msgr. Anton Stres, who received the Russian delegation on Thursday July 22 2010, attended the ceremony. During the Eucharistic celebration held Saturday evening, attended by a Russian state delegation and by a delegation of the Russian Orthodox Church, Msgr. Stres underlined: “The tragic event closely tied the two peoples of Russia and Slovenia. But this incident is not their only bond. They are both tied by Slav and Christian roots, which represent the value from which the Russian and Slovenian peoples drew the inspiration, the strength and the firmness to survive the ordeals of history, and built upon these values each one in their own ways.”Christian values were challenged in the new Europe. Our common task as Christians is to preserve them and live them. The danger doesn’t come from the outside but from the inside, by the loss in meaning and by the existential void that modern Europeans seek to bridge with material goods and economic success. Many consider good all that leads to profit and to economic growth, without considering the consequences on man and on nature. But this path has proved to be a dead end. The financial crisis is an admonition and an appeal to reflection, on which our efforts must be centered. For the construction of the European political and economic community it is necessary to take into account man’s spiritual dimension, his dignity, his needs and his final destiny. Christian churches are extremely important in the erection and strengthening of the spiritual basis and this represents an important aspect of civil society, that was underscored in the Lisbon Treaty and in the recent ruling of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia, on the constitutionality of a series of regulations on religious freedom adopted in 2007, notably those on the role of the Christian Church across society. The Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia rejected the appeal against this regulation, as it confirmed its basic layout, which represents a major step forward towards the normalization and Europeanization of the relations between the state and the religious communities in Slovenia. Despite the opposition of the left wing, the Court declared that Churches and religious communities represent an important part of civil society, and that they constitute a point of departure for positive and cooperative State-Church relations. The Court established that in the conflict between a positive and negative evaluation of religious freedom, the negative does not prevail over the positive. The Russian chapel and the ruling of the Constitutional Court are two positive examples of the construction of bridges linking two peoples in one case and bringing the State closer to the Church in the other. The Russian and Slovenian population share not only the tragedy of 96 years ago. They share the same Slavish roots and common Christian values, while the State and the Church are bound by their effort to ensure the good of mankind, to fulfill human needs, to provide relief to human difficulties and encourage their hopes. Each must do his share in the construction of solid and stable bridges between the Churches and the political community of Europe.