Salzburg: Impulses for church historical peace research

Salzburg, October 7th, 2024 (KAP) Salzburg church historian Professor Roland Cerny-Werner drew a positive conclusion from the latest church history conference on the role of churches and religions in the Cold War. About 35 experts from eight countries came to Salzburg recently to shed light on the Cold War era with a view to the role of churches and religions. One result of the conference was the need to break down even more Eurocentric views, Cerny-Werner said in a Kathpress interview on Monday. More research is needed, for example, with a view to the Helsinki Process and the role of the European Aid Agency based in Vienna, which played an important role in helping the church behind the Iron Curtain.

The conference highlighted various church developments in the Soviet Union, Poland and Yugoslavia. Speeches were also dedicated to female Christian dissidents in the former Eastern Bloc or “Bacon Father” Werenfried van Straaten, who founded the international relief organization Church in Need. The topics were explored from both Catholic, Orthodox and Reformed perspectives. Buddhist peace initiatives were also celebrated. The spectrum of lectures was extended to Japan, China and South Africa.

As the Hamburg theologian Professor Sebastian Holzbrecher was able to show, the cooperation of Christianity across the Iron Curtain took place largely through aid groups. The focus of his presentation was on the European Aid Agency (EHC). This was established by the Austrian Bishops’ Conference and was based in Vienna. However, as some Germans acted as leaders, the German Bishops’ Conference took over the leadership of some important projects.

However, Austria as the seat of the EHC was advantageous because one could benefit from Austria’s neutrality. The main focus of the EHC was to support the Catholic churches in Eastern Europe. However, according to Holzbrecher, it seems that it was never possible to expand the aid group ecumenically. However, more research on EHC is needed.

In her speech, the German church historian Dr. Katharina Kunter, who teaches in Helsinki, some of the stories about the Helsinki Process. Among other things, this was about representing Finland as a neutral country at the interface between East and West. In fact, the political scene in Finland was much more pro-Soviet than was widely known.

The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE; “Helsinki Process”) was a series of cross-bloc conferences of European states during the East-West conflict. The first conference was held in Helsinki on July 3, 1973, mainly at the initiative of the participating states of the Warsaw Pact. There were 35 participating states: the USA, Canada, the Soviet Union and all European states except Albania and Andorra, which joined the CSCE immediately afterwards. On August 1, 1975, the heads of state and government of the 35 participating states signed the Final Act in Helsinki, which records their commitment to cooperation in various subjects and areas of action. The signing is considered a historic breakthrough at the height of the Cold War. In 1995, the CSCE was established by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) as its successor.

Memory of Cardinal König

The conference was opened by the Dean of the Faculty of Catholic Theology at the University of Salzburg, Prof. Dietmar Winkler. He praised the progressive achievements of the Viennese Archbishop Cardinal Franz König (1905-2004), who from the 1960s built relations between the Western churches and the churches of what was then the Eastern Bloc.

The Orthodox theologian Professor Georg Vlantis, who teaches at Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, spoke about strong anti-ecumenical movements in the Orthodox churches with a view to the Cold War era. However, over time, access to ecumenism within Orthodoxy slowly changed for the better, with Orthodox churches also joining the World Council of Churches.

The conference was organized by the Department of “Biblical Studies and Church History” at the Faculty of Catholic Theology of the University of Salzburg in collaboration with the Salzburg Pro Oriente Department, the Archbishop of Salzburg and the City and State of Salzburg. The conference was organized by Roland Cerny-Werner and Prof. Katharina Kunter. A follow-up conference will be held in Salzburg on 10/11. June 2025 in Helsinki, as announced by Cerny-Werner. The location was chosen on purpose: to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the signing of the CSCE Final Act.