Nanovic Institute Event Brief: "A world that was well-known to him"

Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti on his contacts with Saint John Paul II at the fall of the Soviet Union

Keeley Vatican Lecture

September 21, 2022

“A world that was well-known to him”

The Keeley Vatican Lecture 2022

Saint John Paul II at the fall of the Soviet Union

BY GRÁINNE MCEVOY

The Nanovic Institute for European Studies was honored to welcome His Excellency, the Most Reverend Claudio Gugerotti, the Apostolic Nuncio to Great Britain and the Titular Archbishop of Rebellum, to present the Keeley Vatican Lecture on Wednesday, September 21, 2022.

In a deeply moving and personal lecture titled “My Contacts with Saint John Paul II at the Fall of the Soviet Union,” Archbishop Gugerotti shared some of the contacts he had with the Holy Father in the context of the final years of the Soviet Union. These recollections, he explained, were unknown to the public before the lecture and reflected “the sensitivity of that pontiff, son of the Polish people and an internal witness to the Communist history.”

The lecture, which was moved to an online format due to His Excellency’s attendance at the state funeral for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, was introduced by Clemens Sedmak, director of the Nanovic Institute and professor of social ethics in the Keough School of Global Affairs. Sedmak explained the Nanovic Institute’s particular interest in Central and Eastern Europe, in the role of Catholicism in Europe, and in “personal encounters, creative research, and formative experiences.” In these ways, Archbishop Gugerotti’s unique experience of working with and on behalf of the then Pope John Paul II has particular relevance for the institute and its students, faculty, and wider community.

“A world that was well-known to him”: Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti on his contacts with

Welcoming Archbishop Gugerotti to deliver the Keeley Vatican Lecture, Sedmak noted that since meeting His Excellency at Ukrainian Catholic University in 2018, he has referenced the Archbishop repeatedly in his classes on diplomacy. Even still, Sedmak described the Archbishop as “ so much more than a diplomat: he is also a philosopher, a historian, a linguist, a teacher, and a shepherd.”

“The

Archbishop Gugerotti’s initial contact with Saint John Paul II was due to his involvement with the Vatican’s effort to help the victims of the catastrophic earthquake that hit the northern region of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Armenia on December 7, 1988. Then a 33-year-old priest and official for the Vatican’s Congregation of the Oriental Churches, Archbishop Gugerotti was invited to join a delegation from Caritas Italiana that was traveling to the disaster site and needed the help of this young Italian priest who had studied Armenia and the Armenian language. Only in such an emergency, His Excellency explained, would a young man from the Roman Curia with relatively little experience have been allowed to accompany such a delegation. He recalled that when they arrived in the city of Leninakan — now named Gyumri — “an unimaginable ruin appeared before our eyes”: Brezhnev-era apartment buildings razed to the ground, streets full of camps for survivors, and piles of empty coffins for the bodies of those pulled from or still trapped under the rubble. The delegation was welcomed by the head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Catholicos Vazgen I. They celebrated mass with Armenian vestments, and also witnessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta in prayer with some of her sisters, who had been permitted to minister in Armenia and Georgia through the intervention of Raisa Gorbachev, wife of the Soviet premier.

Upon the Caritas Italiana delegation’s return to Rome, they received an unexpected dinner invitation from the Pope. Archbishop Gugerotti described the long evening of sharing with their pensive but inquisitive host who was “struck by the stories of that immense tragedy [and] we realized

Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti on his contacts with Saint John Paul II at the fall of the Soviet Union

beginning of a relationship … which will deeply mark my life”

that human and pastoral interest [was] interwoven with a special attention due to the fact that we [were] talking about the Soviet Union.” This was, the Archbishop continued, “a world well-known to him and which, in his Poland, was the essential political reference point in those times.” From that evening on, the Pope gave the delegation special attention. “For me,” Archbishop Gugerotti explained, “it will be the beginning of an unexpected and unprecedented relationship, which will accompany me until the pontiff’s death and which will deeply mark my life.”

“Exceptional occurrences”

This contact with John Paul II also marked the beginning of the pontiff’s special attention to the people of Armenia and the protection of the Christian faith in that Soviet bloc country. His Excellency explained that each time his delegation returned from Amenia, the Holy Father met with them personally and listened to their stories. The Pope’s interest also focused on the strengthening of the relationship between the Roman Catholic and Armenian Apostolic churches, which took place in the context of the Pope’s existing attention to reconciliation between the Holy See and the Oriental Orthodox Church. Archbishop Gugerotti’s recollections showed how this Papal vision played out on the ground where the strands that helped strengthen the tie between Rome and Armenia were often woven from a combination of strategic and persistent collaboration and “exceptional occurrences.”

One such occurrence was an unexpected meeting in Leninakan with a journalist from the Archbishop’s native city of Verona, Mr. Bruno Panzinera of La Rena, who facilitated the Caritas Italiana group’s contact with a group of Armenian Catholics. This community was still practicing the faith in a remote northern village despite being without a priest for sixty years. In what is now the region of Ashotsk, this community lived near the border with Georgia at an altitude of 2,500 meters. It was an area affected by the earthquake but largely forgotten by aid agencies and which would become the site for a school built with funds raised by La Rena. When Archbishop Gugerotti’s group arrived, including priests in clerical clothes, they were immediately approached by members

Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti on his contacts with Saint John Paul II at the fall of the Soviet Union

of the local Catholic community. Curiously, this included the first secretary of the local Communist party. These de facto parishioners had met every Sunday, placed the cassock of their last priest on the altar and sang hymns that had been passed down from generation to generation. In a small chapel they displayed an image of the Pope alongside an image of the Armenian Apostolic Catholicos. After returning to Rome, Archbishop Gugerotti shared photographs of this and other Catholic churches in the area with the Holy Father who, deeply touched, kissed the photos one by one.

Archbishop Gugerotti recounted “a new exceptional occurrence” that helped smooth the way for sending a priest to serve Armenian Catholics. When, as instructed, His Excellency discretely made contact with Catholicos Vazgen I to address the question, the Armenian Apostolic leader was receptive but indicated that a pastor should be chosen from among the Mekhitarist monks of San Lazzaro in Venice, an order that was on particularly good terms with the Armenian Church. When it came time to establish a local hierarchy, the Pope identified the superior general of the Mekhitarist order, Fr. Nerses Ter-Nersesyan, to be placed in charge. Securing the Catholicos’ approval of this choice was greatly facilitated by the discovery that the Catholicos already knew and was “particularly fond” of Fr. Nerses. Originally from Romania, the monk’s father was a priest of the Armenian Apostolic Church whose bishop, many decades earlier, had been the Catholicos himself. Vazgen I not only welcomed Fr. Nerses’ appointment but invited him to live in his private apartment until he could secure somewhere to live.

In concluding his lecture, Archbishop Gugerotti said that he had related these contacts with Saint John Paul II “to shed further light on the passion for freedom that he showed once he experienced the harshness of the atheist regime and the attention he paid to the period of the end of the Soviet Union.” He also speculated that if other world leaders had “done the same at the time and with the same knowledge,” the following years would have been very different. As he drew to a close, His Excellency recalled a conversation in which he told the Holy Father about the widespread notion

Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti on his contacts with Saint John Paul II at the fall of the Soviet Union

that his pontificate had been decisive in the fall of the Soviet Communist regime. The Archbishop said, “he replied with a smile and said, ‘don’t exaggerate — it was already destroyed from within.’”

The above provides a brief survey of some of the highlights of Archbishop’s Gugerotti’s Keeley Vatican Lecture, conscious that His Excellency recounted these contacts with Saint John Paul II with a richness of detail and depth of emotion that is impossible to replicate in writing. The Nanovic Institute invites you to rewatch this lecture on the institute’s website or YouTube channel.

The Keeley Vatican Lecture, facilitated annually by the Nanovic Institute, provides a way to deepen Notre Dame’s connection to the Holy See by bringing distinguished representatives from the Vatican to explore questions surrounding the University’s Catholic mission. Established in 2005 through the generous support of alumnus Terrence R. Keeley, lecturers typically spend several days on campus, joining classes, celebrating Mass with students and conversing with faculty members. For a complete archive of the series, visit nanovic.nd.edu/vatican.

Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti on his contacts with Saint John Paul II at the fall of the Soviet Union