My Life and Times

The Great Unifier
By JAROSLAV PELIKAN

New Haven ? On June 3, 1979, a few months after Cardinal Karol Wojtyla became the first Slavic pope, he set out as the vision of his pontificate "that this Polish pope, this Slav pope, should at this precise moment manifest the spiritual unity of Christian Europe," even though "there are two great traditions, that of the West and that of the East," with roots in Old Rome and "in the New Rome, at Constantinople."

He spoke these words at a time when all the Slavic peoples, whether Orthodox or Catholic (or Protestant) were subject to the atheist tyranny of Marxism-Leninism, and one of his principal contributions to the realization of that vision was, in his native Poland but with ripple effects throughout the Soviet empire, to help set in motion powerful impulses of the mind and spirit - and of the Spirit -that would bring down the walls and topple the regimes. The relative importance of that contribution in comparison with Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost and Ronald Reagan's defiance will continue to be debated by historians. But he did manage, by a curious form of divine irony, to answer the question attributed long before to Stalin: "How many divisions does the pope command?" The spiritual rebirth of all the churches of Slavic Europe, which is going on even as we speak, is a major consequence of that revolution.

With several Eastern churches his vision of spiritual unity has made significant progress. With the Assyrian Church of the East, traditionally referred to as the Nestorian Church, he signed a declaration in 1994 in which it was agreed that "the controversies of the past led to anathemas" and that "the divisions brought about in this way were due in large part to misunderstandings." Two years later, in 1996, he signed a similar declaration with Catholicos Karekin I of the Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Church, acknowledging that "linguistic, cultural and political factors have immensely contributed towards the theological divergences that have found expression in their terminology of formulating their doctrines" and expressing the shared "hope for and commitment to recovery of full communion between them." There have been several noteworthy expressions of mutual charity and respectful visits between this pope and Bartholomew, the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, cordial enough to elicit criticism from isolationist elements in the various Orthodox churches.

The least progress toward reconciliation has occurred in relations with the Orthodox Church of Russia. The end of Communist rule has brought with it a rebirth of the rivalry and mutual recrimination that have been tearing Slavic Europe apart ever since its conversion to Christianity more than a millennium ago by St. Cyril and St. Methodius of Thessalonica. The Venerable Bede gave the Gospel credit for unifying the peoples of Britain, but we Slavs are the only people to have been divided by the Gospel: whether to follow Cyril and Methodius in their affiliation with Constantinople (and therefore a Slavonic liturgy and autonomous national churches), or to follow them in their appeal to the authority of the bishop of Rome (and therefore a Latin liturgy and the centralized authority of the papacy).

The Bulgarians, Russians, Serbs and Ukrainians chose the first alternative; Croats, Czechs, Poles and Slovaks the second. The most ambitious attempt to heal that schism came in 1596, with the Union of Brest, in which several dioceses of the Church of Ukraine accepted the authority of the papacy while retaining their own liturgy and canon law. But the adherents of this union (disparagingly named "Uniats") have also been a major source of hostility between East and West. Ruthlessly persecuted by Stalin and forcibly reunited to the Orthodox patriarchate of Moscow, they regained their freedom and their properties only after the fall of Communism.

But as a consequence of the latter-day struggle over those properties and, more broadly, of obstreperous tactics from all directions, everyone's old suspicions have been confirmed. After decades of neglect (and worse), churches were in serious disrepair, but whose responsibility was it to put them back into shape for worship, the Orthodox or the Greek Catholics? As in any ancient feud, it is impossible to roll things back to status quo ante and to fix the blame.

For the old pope, this dispute was a major source of heartbreak. As he said to me at Castel Gandolfo a few months after I had been received into the Orthodox Church, he always believed that ever since the schism of 1054, "Western Christendom has been breathing on one lung." But, he was implying, so has Eastern Christendom! When so many of the historic sources of division between them have proved to be negotiable (even the central doctrinal question of the source of the Holy Spirit) and when, in the encyclical "Ut Unum Sint" ("That They May Be One"), this pope opened the question of papal primacy up for discussion, one cannot escape the feeling that everyone has missed a great opportunity.

Schisms, like divorces, take a long time to develop - and reconciliations take even longer. It will be a celebration of the legacy of Pope John Paul II and an answer to his prayers (and to those of all Christians, beginning with their Lord himself) if the Eastern and Western churches can produce the necessary mixture of charity and sincere effort to continue to work toward the time when they all may be one.


Jaroslav Pelikan, professor emeritus of history at Yale, is the author of the five-volume history "The Christian Tradition."

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Tough Choices Ahead, Church Opens Rites for Pope
By IAN FISHER

VATICAN CITY, April 3 - His pale, folded hands intertwined with a rosary, Pope John Paul II was laid out inside the papal palace on Sunday as the power in the Roman Catholic Church began its shift to his eventual successor.

Just 12 hours after he died Saturday night, the majestic pageantry around the death of a pope began, with a huge public Mass in St. Peter's Square and then the first rites of John Paul's funeral.

The body of the 84-year-old pope was laid out in Clementine Hall, dressed in white and red vestments, his head covered with a white bishop's miter and propped up on three dark gold pillows. Tucked under his left arm was the silver staff, called the crosier, that he carried in public.

"He suffered a lot, and he suffered for many years," Francesco Rutelli, the former mayor of Rome and an opposition leader in Italy, said after seeing the body of the pope, whom he had met with often over the years.

In death, after 26 years as pope, "his expression was serene," Mr. Rutelli said.

Even amid the start of the ceremonies honoring this pope, steps toward a new leadership were being taken: nearly all the top officials of Vatican departments have been obliged to step down, leaving the church in a brief state of suspended animation.

The new pope, whose election begins in the Sistine Chapel 15 to 20 days from now, will decide which cardinals will lead his administration and thus set the new path for the next era in the Catholic Church.

The viewing ceremony on Sunday - broadcast live over Italian television - was for cardinals, bishops and other members of the church hierarchy as well as prominent officials in Italy, where the church is a central and ancient pillar. The guests included Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi. Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, the pope's personal secretary for decades and by proximity one of the most powerful men in the church, sat in a rear pew receiving condolences and wiping away tears.

The public mourning over the body of John Paul - who died after a urinary tract infection set off a fatal spiral of ailments - begins on Monday.

The pope's body will be displayed at St. Peter's Basilica, designed in part by Michelangelo, though it was uncertain if it would be inside or at the top of the steps outside the church's huge bronze doors.

On Sunday, several hundred chairs were set up in two sections - broken up by an open surface of stone where his body will lie for three or four days starting Monday - in front of the basilica.

Huge crowds continued to flock to St. Peter's Square on Sunday, after two nights of vigils for the pope.

The mood began to shift from what had been an anxious death watch: On a beautiful sunny day, there were banners and music and a self-conscious awareness of being close to history, with Romans and tourists alike posing in front of St. Peter's holding copies of newspapers with big headlines announcing John Paul's death.

At a morning memorial Mass, Archbishop Leonard Elisabetta Sandri, who served as the pope's public voice in the last stages of his illness, announced to tens of thousands of worshippers that he would be reading a message prepared by the pope himself for this Sunday, a week after Easter.

"It is love which converts hearts and gives peace," he said. "Lord, who with your death and Resurrection revealed the love of the Father, we believe in you and with faith we repeat to you today: 'Jesus I trust in you, have pity on us and on the entire world.' "

There remained a strong sense of a mourning and loss for a pope who had served for so long and inspired many Catholics - whether or not they agreed with his conservative stances on social issues - with the idea that his papacy was different from others.

"In a world that needs guidance, he's always been very clear," said Rita Dekonski, 45, a banker from England. "He's reaffirmed a lot of Catholic values that were being lost."

Still, she said, she would like the next pope to be "a little more liberal."

Ivana Sparaco, 30, an English teacher from Rome, said she hoped the next pope would be on the model of John Paul II, especially in his down-to-earth manner.

"He struck me as very human, very informal, demonstrating no shame about his suffering," she said. "My impression of the church used to be that it was a somber place of penance, but the pope made it into something of a joy for me."

On Monday, the College of Cardinals convenes for the first time in the popeless period known as the interregnum.

They will discuss church business, as well as details of John Paul's funeral and how to proceed toward the conclave that will choose the next pope.

Meantime, the Vatican chamberlain, Cardinal Eduardo Martínez Somalo, a 78-year-old Spaniard, took over administrative control of a church with a billion members worldwide. By tradition, the chamberlain is charged with determining officially that the pope is dead.

On Sunday, at the first viewing of the pope's body in the papal palace, Cardinal Martínez Somalo took a public role, sprinkling John Paul with holy water and offering a blessing.

"We beg the Lord to welcome him into his kingdom and to grant him the prize for the trials he has endured for the Gospel," Cardinal Martínez Somalo said in Latin before the pope's body.

Head turned slightly to the side, the body of John Paul was laid out on a platform in the huge hall, used to greet dignitaries, with two Swiss guards on either side.

The guards themselves knelt to pay their respects, as did nuns, priests, diplomats and some of the most important people in Italy.

Meantime on Sunday, the Vatican released more details of the illness of John Paul, who died in his apartment after deciding Thursday not to return to the hospital despite the knowledge, according to his spokesman, that his condition was increasingly grave.

He had been admitted twice to the Gemelli hospital clinic since Feb. 1, the start of a two-month decline.

The death certificate said he died from "septic shock" - a precipitous drop in blood pressure because of infection - and "irreversible cardiocirculatory collapse."

The certificate listed as contributing causes Parkinson's disease, which he had suffered from for more than a decade; episodes of respiratory insufficiency and constriction of the trachea; signs of heart damage; and an enlarged prostate gland, which made him vulnerable to the kind of urinary infection that killed him.

The certificate said the death was certified after the pope's heart was tested for 20 minutes with an electrocardiogram.

On Monday, the Vatican may announce the day of the funeral. By church rules, he must be buried four to six days of his death - that is, between Wednesday and Friday.

An announcement is also possible on whether he will be interred with other popes in St. Peter's Basilica or whether his will specified that he be buried in his home country of Poland.

In Turkey, Mehmet Ali Agca, who shot and seriously injured the pope in 1981, was also mourning the pope's death, his brother told The Associated Press. The pope publicly forgave Mr. Agca, visited him in prison and received several of his relatives, including his mother.

"I feel that he is in deep sorrow over the death of the pope, who was like a brother to him," Mr. Agca's brother, Adnan, was quoted as saying. "We're all very sad. He was a great man who contributed a lot to world peace."


Daniel J. Wakin,Elisabeth Rosenthal of The International Herald Tribune and Elisabetta Povoledo contributed reportingfor this article.



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