Prophetic Encyclical for the Balkans

It was a “stormy period” in the Balkans, “marked by armed conflicts between” neighboring peoples. In Eastern Europe, divisions were mounting between the faith of the West and of the East.

Two great spiritual leaders arose from among the people, marked by “a resolute and vigilant fidelity to right doctrine and to the tradition of the perfectly united Church.” They were able to unite the Slav people in a new way: the way of the Church.

Pope John Paul II sets this scene in his 1985 encyclical Slavorum Apostoli (Apostles to the Slavs, 14). In it, Sts. Cyril and Methodius are presented as examples for Eastern Europe, for the Balkans, and for the whole Church.

The scene could just as well be the Balkans today, and it has been suggested that the encyclical was a prophetic account of things to come — and of how Christians should respond.

Eastern Europe after communism is shackled with intertwining ethnic, regional and religious conflicts. But there is hope, the Pope says. This kind of turmoil has been faced before, and overcome by the Slavs through the unifying power of the faith.

“Ever since the ninth century,” the Holy Father wrote, “when in Christian Europe a new organization was emerging, Saints Cyril and Methodius have held out to us a message clearly of great relevance for our own age, which precisely by reason of the many complex problems of a religious, cultural, civil and international nature, is seeking a vital unity in the real communion of its various elements” (26).

“It can be said of the two evangelizers that characteristic of them was their love for the communion of the universal Church both in the East and in the West, and, within the universal Church, love for the particular Church that was coming into being in the Slav nations. From them also comes for the Christians and people of our time the invitation to build communion together” (26).

The Holy Father's prescription in 1985 for the troubles of Eastern Europe was the new evangelization. It is the same now. His answer is not political because at its root the problem is not political. Most fundamentally, the problem is that people are seeking unity where it cannot be found. Only in faith can unity be re-established — not in nationalism, ideology or ethnicity.

The Pope ends with this prayer for the Slav peoples: “May they live in truth, charity, justice and in the enjoyment of the messianic peace which enfolds human hearts, communities, the earth and the entire universe!

“Aware of their dignity as human beings and children of God, may they have the strength to overcome all hatred and to conquer evil with good”(30).

* * *

Reuniting East and West

Pope John Paul II is fulfilling a role today much like the apostles to the Slavs.

Amid war in Yugoslavia, he has acted boldly to make his first visit as Pope to an Orthodox Eastern European nation, by traveling to Romania May 7-9.

Sts. Cyril and Methodius were able to accomplish so much by being in “full spiritual and canonical unity with the Church of Rome, with the Church of Constantinople and with the new Churches which they had founded among the Slav peoples” (Slavorum Apostoli, 14).

Likewise, the Pope means to do all in his power to accomplish the great task of reunifying East and West. That goal, which has been so close to his heart for years, has seemed recently to be slipping out of reach.

The Orthodox have made it difficult for Catholics in the years after the dissolution of the communist regimes. They have treated Catholic countrymen as religious interlopers and have appropriated property taken from the Church by the previous governments.

Catholics sacrificed a great deal to make the Pope's visit to Romania possible — they gave up their efforts to regain many of the churches they owned before the communists took over. Now, the only way Church property will be restored is through a reunification of the “two lungs” of the Church, Orthodoxy and Catholicism.

It will take a miracle. Pope John Paul hopes for one.

In the encyclical, he quotes St. Methodius' dying words: “Into thy hands I commend my spirit.” He notes that his death took place “at a time when disquieting clouds were gathering above Constantinople and hostile tensions were increasingly threatening the peace and life of the nations, and even threatening the sacred bonds of Christian brotherhood and communion linking the Churches of the East and West” (29).

In his own concluding prayer for unity, the Pope recalls that this communion has been severed; and he repeats, on behalf of the Church: “Into your hands … we trustfully place [the future] in your hands, Heavenly Father” (32).

Will relations improve between East and West? Is peace possible in the Balkans after literally centuries of conflict have begun to boil over?

The prayer “Into your hands I commend my spirit” has been the precursor of astonishing things before.