toward the Soviet Union initiated in 1959â60 by Pope John XXIII, and subsequently elaborated from 1963 to 1978 into the wellknown
Ostpolitik
of the Vatican under Pope Paul VI, presented a practical problem for John Paul. For, at its heart, it was the same policy of containment that the Western powers had adopted toward the USSR of Joseph Stalin in the forties and that they had followed ever since. Its essence was to contain Soviet aggression; to react to Soviet moves; and to wait for some favorable evolution within the Soviet system.
Whatever the results of such an
Ostpolitik
for capitalist democracy, it was a barren policy for religion and for the Church. It promised only silent martyrdom amid the slow erosion of all religious tradition by the steady pressures of a professional antireligion. It was a seemingly perpetual tunnel with no light at the end, filled merely with the ever-encroaching darkness of spreading godlessness.
Nonetheless, Pope John Paul made it clear that he would not abrogate the policies of his predecessors. Practically speaking, it would have been difficult and even counterproductive to do so in any case, for diplomatic protocols with some Eastern European countries had already been signed, and others were in train.
The solution for John Paul lay in the fact that there was nothing in the Vaticanâs
Ostpolitik
, and nothing in the Vatican protocols, to keep him from attempting an end run around the Soviet Party-State. In precisely such a move, the new Holy Father set about building closer and ever closer ties with the Russian Orthodox Church and with Eastern Orthodoxy in general.
This papal end run included certain overt movesâJohn Paul visited the Greek Orthodox center in Istanbul, for example; and he received and openly favored visits to the Vatican by Orthodox prelates. But there were also constant covert moves originating in Poland and radiating into western parts of the USSR, moves that fostered a common religious bond between Eastern European Roman Catholics and Russian Orthodox communities.
Later historians with access to records unavailable today will document the successes of John Paulâs end-run policies and their basic premise. Suffice it to say now that, in spite of the official prostitution of the Russian Orthodox Church to the ideological policies of the Party-State, John Paulâs efforts nourished within that Church a genuinely Christian core of prelates and people eager once and for all to reenter the mainstream of European Christianity as vindicated by papal Rome; and eager as well to renounce the role, accepted once upon a time by Russian Orthodox Church authorities, as servants of the Soviet Party-State in the fomentation of worldwide revolution.
By the opening of the eighties, about half of the Orthodox prelates were already secretly prepared, if the opportunity were afforded, to place themselves under the ecclesial unity of the Roman Pope. A sociocultural leavening had been produced within the Russian Orthodox Church. While the Vaticanâs official
Ostpolitik
remained undisturbed, a deep cultural change was being effected covertly within the body of Russian Orthodox believers that could lead in the long runâas all deep cultural changes doâto sociopolitical change.
Yet another factor the Pope reckoned as working for his new policy of stirring up change in the Soviet Union was the information revolution taking place worldwide. Launched in the West, and already producing a global invasion of practical knowledge into the business of international linkage and development, this was not a factor under John Paulâs control. But it could only work hand in glove with the sociocultural change so essential for his stategy in the Soviet Union. For the information revolution would inevitably mean the dawning of the factual truth about things on the minds of Soviet citizens. Factual truth about past history, for one thing; and about present economic and
Ostpolitik
of the Vatican under Pope Paul VI, presented a practical problem for John Paul. For, at its heart, it was the same policy of containment that the Western powers had adopted toward the USSR of Joseph Stalin in the forties and that they had followed ever since. Its essence was to contain Soviet aggression; to react to Soviet moves; and to wait for some favorable evolution within the Soviet system.
Whatever the results of such an
Ostpolitik
for capitalist democracy, it was a barren policy for religion and for the Church. It promised only silent martyrdom amid the slow erosion of all religious tradition by the steady pressures of a professional antireligion. It was a seemingly perpetual tunnel with no light at the end, filled merely with the ever-encroaching darkness of spreading godlessness.
Nonetheless, Pope John Paul made it clear that he would not abrogate the policies of his predecessors. Practically speaking, it would have been difficult and even counterproductive to do so in any case, for diplomatic protocols with some Eastern European countries had already been signed, and others were in train.
The solution for John Paul lay in the fact that there was nothing in the Vaticanâs
Ostpolitik
, and nothing in the Vatican protocols, to keep him from attempting an end run around the Soviet Party-State. In precisely such a move, the new Holy Father set about building closer and ever closer ties with the Russian Orthodox Church and with Eastern Orthodoxy in general.
This papal end run included certain overt movesâJohn Paul visited the Greek Orthodox center in Istanbul, for example; and he received and openly favored visits to the Vatican by Orthodox prelates. But there were also constant covert moves originating in Poland and radiating into western parts of the USSR, moves that fostered a common religious bond between Eastern European Roman Catholics and Russian Orthodox communities.
Later historians with access to records unavailable today will document the successes of John Paulâs end-run policies and their basic premise. Suffice it to say now that, in spite of the official prostitution of the Russian Orthodox Church to the ideological policies of the Party-State, John Paulâs efforts nourished within that Church a genuinely Christian core of prelates and people eager once and for all to reenter the mainstream of European Christianity as vindicated by papal Rome; and eager as well to renounce the role, accepted once upon a time by Russian Orthodox Church authorities, as servants of the Soviet Party-State in the fomentation of worldwide revolution.
By the opening of the eighties, about half of the Orthodox prelates were already secretly prepared, if the opportunity were afforded, to place themselves under the ecclesial unity of the Roman Pope. A sociocultural leavening had been produced within the Russian Orthodox Church. While the Vaticanâs official
Ostpolitik
remained undisturbed, a deep cultural change was being effected covertly within the body of Russian Orthodox believers that could lead in the long runâas all deep cultural changes doâto sociopolitical change.
Yet another factor the Pope reckoned as working for his new policy of stirring up change in the Soviet Union was the information revolution taking place worldwide. Launched in the West, and already producing a global invasion of practical knowledge into the business of international linkage and development, this was not a factor under John Paulâs control. But it could only work hand in glove with the sociocultural change so essential for his stategy in the Soviet Union. For the information revolution would inevitably mean the dawning of the factual truth about things on the minds of Soviet citizens. Factual truth about past history, for one thing; and about present economic and
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