Word: slavs
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Those failed gods, West and East, appear to be as powerful as ever in the onrush of events. But the Slav Pope has suddenly emerged from his triumphant visit to Poland as a dramatic and compelling personality on the international scene. John Paul will surely have something of his own to say about the principalities and powers...
...hosts of oppressed congregations in the Soviet orbit that fare worse than Christians in Poland. In one remarkable sermon, the Pope wondered aloud about God's purposes in the election of an East European as the first non-Italian Pope in 455 years. He called himself history's "first Slav Pope," whose succession to the Apostle Peter forms a bond of blood not only with Poles but with other Slavic peoples, including Czechs, Slovaks, Slovenes, Serbs, Croats, Bulgarians, Ukrainians and, most dramatically, Russians ?some 220 million Slavs in all. Rhetorically, at least, that included the great Orthodox churches...
...would be sad to believe," he said, "that each Pole and Slav in any part of the world is unable ^ to hear the words of the Pope, this Slav. I hope they hear me." Many did, but no thanks to the Communist state media. Soviet television carried a 30-second clip on the Pope's arrival, but refused to show its audience the hundreds of thousands
...that context, John Paul speculated on the ethnic significance of his election as Pope last Oct. 16. "Is it not the intention of the Holy Spirit that this Polish Pope?this Slav Pope?should at this precise moment manifest the spiritual unity of Christian Europe? Although there are two great traditions, that of the West and that of the East, to which it is indebted, through both of them Christian Europe professes 'one faith, one baptism, one God and Father...
...What will we do with this Slav Pope?' they will say," John Paul joked to fellow Poles, describing the nervousness of his Italian aides. But the question will more likely be asked by Communist Party leaders all over Eastern Europe, most crucially perhaps by the Soviets. It is in the Kremlin, more than anywhere else, that the conditions under which the East bloc churches live could be quickly changed, for better or worse. Just as the real area of agreement between the Polish party and the Polish church was a fear of domestic disorder that might activate the Red Army...