Marco Gnavi

Still in our days the history of the Christian presence in a world in transformation, has not failed to offer us precious and unique testimony of all those who, out of faith, have lived their love for Christ and the Church, even to the shedding of their blood: this in North Africa and also in other contexts, at other latitudes. Their conscious gift unites them mysteriously with the first generations of believers who, already in pre-Constantinian times, became semen christianorum, able to irrigate the planting of the Church with new force and evangelising energy. At the beginning of the preparatory year for the Jubilee devoted to Christ, the only Saviour of the world, the Commission for the "New Martyrs" of the 20th century collected some contributions to connect problems and suggestions relative to the memory of the 'martyrs' of today, with their early roots.

The martyr in fact is total expression of loyalty to Jesus of Nazareth, crucified, risen and living, who will come again to judge the living and the dead, revelation of the Father. With death suffered and accepted as public witness to the truth of the faith, as a full expression of the Christian virtues and in intimate union with Christ, the martyr becomes perfectly configured to the Son of God. He becomes associated with Him in a "baptism of blood" in perfect imitation of and union with Christ. «By martyrdom a disciple is transformed into an image of his Master, who freely accepted death on behalf of the world's salvation; he perfects that image even to the shedding of blood. The Church therefore considers martyrdom as an exceptional gift and as the highest proof of love» (LG 42).

An act of strength and charity, martyrdom is also a manifestation of Christian death in its eschatological character which orientates the eyes of believers and the whole world towards the Kingdom, sharing in the saving eloquence of the cross of Jesus.

However this dossier is only a first "window" on the theme of martyrdom, approached diacronically, looking at the past and at the present. It is only a beginning and by no means exhaustive of the problems and opportunities offered by the theme.

The magisterium of Pope John Paul II has explicitly affirmed the centrality of the testimony of "martyrs" of yesterday and of today , for the auto-conscience of Christians of the 20th century; indeed he stresses the fact that the Church has become "once again the Church of martyrs"

Carcel Orti, in a brief review, has collected a few specific passages of Pope John Paul II's speeches on martyrdom, and provides a schema of those who have been canonically recognised as martyrs in this last part of the millennium. Reviewing their stories, their names their geographical and historical situations, we find the underlying theme of the highest Christian witness in the most varied contexts. Evangelization in mission lands, Nazi and Communist totalitarianism, situations of conflict or civil war, are some of the fields upon which this witness has been offered.

Mgr. Michel Hrynchyshyn, in his contribution, recalls "the ecumenism of the gulags", an experience of suffering in Eastern Europe which led Christians of different denominations to proclaim Christ's salvation in places which seemed definitively expunged by the forces of evil. In the lagers, these martyrs in the strict sense of the word, confessors of the faith, persecuted Christians, left behind a heritage of hope and strength which has yet to be fully unveiled.

He is echoed, in this review, by Pia Vincenti Guzzi, who analyses the phenomenon of the religious Samizdat not only a clandestine literary form, but also as a proposal of humanism and intellectual and philosophical consecration of the centrality of the human person and their dignity, denied by the Soviet regime.

Fr Jozef Maj, evokes the ecumenical pregnancy of the most recent witnesses of the faith: the gift of their lives can be an opportunity to render visible that which the encyclical Ut unum sint affirms to be, in a theocentric prospective, already realised. This is communion «already perfect in that which we consider the apex of the life of grace, martyrdom to death, the truest communion that there can be with Christ who shed his blood, and in this sacrifice brings close those who once were far away».

A look at some of the different traditions, testifies to the multiplicity and richness which the honouring of martyrs has assumed for the universal Church. In this sense, Fr Lessi, Fr Spidlik and Sister Maria Donadeo have worked a polychrome mosaic of eulogies, trophies, liturgical commemorations of various colours, dealing respectively with the Latin liturgy, Slav thought and theology, and lastly Byzantine liturgical and iconological tradition. We are presented with the beauty of a composition, read and contemplated through the peculiarities of some of its "tessere": from the honour reserved in the ancient Kingdom of Kiev for the stratoterpsi, literally "those who suffer the passion", to the custom of celebrating martyrs on the Feast of All Saints, after the tradition of Constantinople, coming to the Latin liturgy, revisited in its development, from the first records in the "Depositio Martyrum" of 354 AD, to the modern reform of the Liturgical Books.

Lastly, in this dialectic between past and present, in the pluriformity of traditions and contexts, we come down to our own day. Don Bernard Olivera, Abbot General of the Trappists, offers us a human and religious profile of the seven "martyrs" of our time: the monks of Atlas Monastery in Algeria, ruthlessly murdered by armed bandits of the GIA, on May 21st 1996, after being held hostage for more than a month. Speaking to us are their writings, a spiritual will left by Father Christian, their prayer, the vigour and travail of their courageous, serene discernment and decision in the light of Christ. Reading these pages we discover, in a world prey to horrors and the culture of the enemy, the tenacity of an option to love everyone, to the point of forgiving. A decision which, in its evangelical roots has the power to overcome, as the words of the Letter to the Romans say, "evil, with good". Speaking to us is their weakness, as Christians exposed to danger, and yet dispensers of charity and able to say with the Apostle: «When I am weak, then I am strong».

To serve the "memory" is one of the duties of the Commission for New Martyrs. Therefore it is in this direction that this first, partial dossier has taken life, undoubtedly the sole objective is to offer a first reflection in Tertium Millennium, on the theme of martyrdom. Meanwhile in this first stage, we continue our work of collecting and examining documentary material already received, from Europe as well as from Latin America, Africa and Asia: horizons which we hope soon to open again in these same pages.