The exhibition, for the umpteenth time, showed how fragile the relations between Serbia and Croatia are and brought back the personality of Alojzij Stepinac and the issues of his (in)nocence, sanctity, deeds and silence into the center of attention. And while the European parliamentarians, in the breaks between sessions, could look at the sculptures of Cardinal Stepinac, read excerpts from selected speeches, observe the medals or the death mask, officials from Serbia, as well as opposition politicians, sent letters of protest to several Brussels cabinets.
It is already known how everything went - MP Marijana Petir of the Croatian Peasant Party, in cooperation with the bodies of the Roman Catholic Church in Croatia, organized an exhibition about the aforementioned cardinal. The opening was also attended by EP Vice-President Mejrid Medginis, who, as reported by the Croatian media, said that it represents "a kind of sanctuary in the heart of the European Parliament". Unusual words from the center of secular Europe.
After the reaction from Serbia, it was said in Brussels that events of this type in the European Parliament represent only the position of the parliamentarians who participate and organize them, and not the position of everyone, nor the group to which the parliamentarian belongs. Of course, no one can say exactly what comes to mind, those competent services of the EP still have to give approvals. It would not be surprising if this is done, for the most part, by inertia. Finally, the President of the Parliament, Martin Schulz, announced through his cabinet that the entire case will be investigated, after which a decision will be made on the possible reaction.
Several parliamentarians, as the local dailies write, pointed out that the EP should beware of events related to historical controversies, while the Romanian MP Victor Bostinar described the whole matter as the opening of Pandora's box. And it is known that all kinds of things came out of her jar, but she managed to close it before hope flew out.
STUMP STONE: Why is Cardinal Stepinac controversial? A lot is said and written about him, but too often without sufficient critical distance, and with a lot of passion that, when it comes to history, can cloud the vision. It is difficult to talk about who Alojzije Stepinac was, and here there is neither room nor need for a detailed biography of the cardinal, in which a lot remains unexplained (see the article by Ivan Ivanji in "Vremen" No. 1227, "Good Servant of the Pope"). Unfortunately, his diaries have not yet been published, and they might answer a lot of questions.
But, in short, who was Alojzije Stepinac?
An Austro-Hungarian soldier who was wounded and fell into Italian captivity; second lieutenant of the Serbian army, a brave volunteer on the Thessaloniki front, dear to King Alexander; the youngest archbishop in the world (in 1937, after the death of Zagreb archbishop Boyer, Stepinac inherited that position); voter of Macek's party; the military vicar of the Independent State of Croatia, who greeted the arrival of Ante Pavelić with more than cordial words; a great opponent and fighter against communism, which he saw as a greater evil than Nazism and fascism even in the years of the Second World War; Mija Stepinac's brother, who worked for the People's Liberation Movement and was liquidated in 1943 because of it; convict, at a public, communist trial in FNRJ, to 16 years in prison. Some will say that he was a true soldier of his Church and his people who did not shrink from defending both at the cost of his freedom, others - that he was silent on the crimes that happened to others and that he was not at all brave when it came to defending someone outside "his world". Some see him as a saint and humanist, others as a culprit and criminal.
A life worthy of a movie, but is it a life, some ask, worthy of a halo, to be a role model and a guideline? And this is not about film fiction, but about history that will never end.
Is it possible to overcome the gap, the terrible stumbling block between the two churches, and even society, when it comes to this? Some time ago, Pope Francis proposed the establishment of a mixed Orthodox-Catholic commission that will examine in detail the life of Cardinal Stepinac. This step shows more than the good will of the Pope, which was met "with a knife" in a certain part of the Roman Catholic Church in Croatia. It is interesting that during his pontificate, the canonization of Pope Pius XII was stopped, at least for the time being (Hannah Arendt, as was already discussed in "Vremen", talking about the fact that neither racism nor anti-Semitism is clearly condemned by the Roman Catholic Church in those years, she titled an article about Pope Pius XII with: "Guilt by silence?"). It should be emphasized that the commission will not be competent to decide on the canonization of Stepinac, who was declared blessed by Pope John Paul II, because that is a matter for the Vatican, but it is very important that Roman Catholics and Orthodox, history and theology, sit at the same table and talk about (their ) sources, data, documents, testimonies... Of course, here the biggest trap is hidden in expectations and already completely petrified attitudes. The Croatian Bishops' Conference said in a statement that it is a done deal with Stepinec, only that his canonization is being postponed for a few months.
The fact that less than a year ago, bishop Jovan Ćulibrk gave an interview to "Nedeljnik", saying that we will all have to weigh every word regarding Stepinac, because the communist accusation cannot be the starting point for the conversation, shows how heated the situation is. about him, although the whole interview has little to complain about because of the headline about "weighing words" among the public, he encountered numerous criticisms due to his overly conciliatory attitude towards Stepinac.
ABOUT THE INSURGENT: The interlocutors of Vremena, historian Aleksandar Raković, research associate at the Institute for Recent History of Serbia and Dragan Muharem, lecturer at the Theological and Catechetical Institute in Subotica and a priest of the Roman Catholic Church in Serbia, are of the opinion that it is difficult to bridge the chasm between the two church in this case. However, the reasons they give are different.
When it comes to Alojzije Stepinac, his case is seen as paradigmatic for the wider picture, that is, for the entire role and attitude of the Roman Catholic Church in Croatia and its priests during the NDH. Aleksandar Raković believes that "the attempt to declare Stepinac a saint is crucial for the Roman Catholic Church in Croatia and the society there in general, in order to amnesty themselves for the crimes of the Second World War." Resistance to his canonization is not limited only to Serbia and the Serbian Orthodox Church, but also exists among the Roman Catholic hierarchy in the Vatican and elsewhere, where they are familiar with the events of World War II. The question arises as to how the Pope's signature (John Paul II - cf. nov.) on his beatification could even come about, given that the whole matter was not investigated at all, nor was it examined the way it is usually done."
On the other hand, Dragan Muharem believes that the "Stepinac case" is only: "a pattern (among numerous others) that is only the trigger of the underlying problem, which is much more serious and comprehensive." What we have to come to grips with is facing the truth and reality by moving away from myths and ideologies." He further emphasizes that the problem is actually in Serbian society and the Church and that they, considering their inaction and "thunderous silence" during of the twentieth century, they have no right to express their opinion regarding the historical role and sanctity of Stepinac, nor can they be objective benchmarks, which also applies to the current political top of Serbia, which "cases Stepinac" only scores political points. Muharrem is of the opinion that the Serbian Orthodox Church should reconsider its role in the Second World War. "You understand, I am not saying here whether Stepinac is holy or not, whether he is guilty or not, I am only emphasizing that before any dialogue it is necessary to fulfill some prerequisites, namely the will for self-catharsis and truthfulness and the desire to change the paradigm from mythological to real . This applies to both sides. "Without that, everything is grotesque and hypocritical," emphasizes Muharem.
For Dragan Muharem, the fact that the exhibition about Stepinac was held in the EP, as well as that it was opened by Mejrid Medginis, speaks volumes about the more than positive opinion that prevails in Europe when it comes to the Croatian cardinal, and that he will certainly be declared a saint. and it is only a matter of time when it will happen. And if the commission doesn't achieve any success, at least "it will remain an example of two churches that could sit down peacefully at the table and talk."
Aleksandar Raković believes that this is not an already completed issue and that the dialogue conducted in the mixed commission can bring results. "I am afraid that if one day it really happens that Stepinac is canonized, what will happen afterwards?" What message will that send? What will be the relations between the SPC and the Roman Catholic Church in Croatia? What consequences and new tensions will there be?"
Speaking about Stepinac, Raković believes that "Stepinac did not say a word when the Serbs were being Christianized, but wrote to the Vatican about thousands of Serbs who voluntarily convert to Catholicism, which was nonsense. He didn't stand up enough against the crime, he didn't defend the victims, and it is understandable that he could have stepped forward, clearly rebelled. The number of priests of the Serbian Orthodox Church who died in the NDH is measured in the hundreds, bishops were killed... We are talking about the vicar of the Croatian Army who had the power to do something for all those killed, persecuted, baptized... So many people resisted Nazism, I believe that he was not among them", concludes Raković.
And while Muharem emphasizes that overcoming the gap could be achieved through self-catharsis within the Serbian Church and society, and hence the readiness for a true conversation, Raković believes that this gap is unbridgeable due to the inability of the Roman Catholic Church in Croatia, and society, to reconsider and face their the past.
ABOUT THE MODEL: At the beginning of April 1933, a young and exceptionally gifted Protestant theologian and pastor from a wealthy family, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, gave a lecture on "The Church and the Jewish Question" in which he not only defended the right of Jews to be members of the Church, but also advocated their civil rights in the German state. At that time, the Confessional Church separated from the Evangelical Church in Germany, which supported Hitler, and Bonhoeffer became a member. In the following years, Bonhoeffer speaks against Hitler and his ideology, and the beginning of World War II finds him in America, where he gives a series of lectures. Faced with the question of whether to stay or return, Bonhoeffer heads for Germany, writing to a friend that if he does not live through that difficult period, he will have no right to participate in the renewal of Christian life in Germany after the war. Bonhoeffer did not participate in the post-war reconstruction, although he had every right to do so. In April 1943, the Gestapo arrested him in his home. During all the war years, he did not stop fighting against National Socialism. He ended his life in the Flossenburg camp, and was hanged for plotting against Hitler in the last days of the war. A doctor in the camp wrote many years later that in his fifty years of practice he had never seen a man die so devoted to God. From the beginning of the war until the moment when he was arrested, he was working on a book Ethics of responsibility. To put it simply, for Bonhoeffer, Christian ethics is not an ethics of principles and norms that are first theoretically shaped and then applied, but its purpose is to recognize God's will in a specific moment. Such ethics cannot determine once and for all what is good and what is evil, but it is reexamined again and again how to fulfill God's concrete commandment here and now. If you enter a Romanian church in Vienna, you will see a figure of Bonhoeffer on the walls.
Why is this important? Did Bonhoeffer and Stepinac ever meet? They didn't. Were the contexts in which they lived and worked different? Indeed they are. Both of them witnessed a terrible time and coped with it as best they could.
After Stepinac, there are still open questions that await answers: did his insistence, at some point, on the national idea prevail over empathy for the other and the different; whether, as the first man of the Croatian Church, he could have done more while thousands of people were being killed in the camps; why didn't he show the same courage before Nazism as he did before communism?
After Bonhoeffer, only silence and admiration remain.
