ECUMENICAL MOVEMENTS IN CROATIA AFTER THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL

A significant step forward and an opening towards the ecumenical idea and movement, which have been achieved for the whole Catholic Church at the Second Vatican Council, has also had a significant impact in Croatia. This is especially evident in the first few years after the Council, when a whole set of events have been put in motion in the Croatian Church in order to initiate ecumenism in the area of former Yugoslavia. The best source for both directing and getting familiarised with how the ecumenical thought has spread in Croatia in post-conciliar times is Glas Koncila and its bulletin Poslusni Duhu, which was published only five times. These sources show that there was a certain ecumenical euphoria among Croatian clergy and lay believers in the first years after the Council, but there was also a major arrest at the beginning of the seventies of the twentieth century. In these parts, ecumenism was mostly directed towards the Serbian Orthodox Church, in which attitudes towards ecumenism were conflicting; there were those who supported it and those who were very careful and even prejudiced about it. In the area of ecumenical thought and the whole ecumenical movement in its initial phase in Croatia, the most important role was played by Tomislav Janko Sagi-Bunic, whose articles in Glas Koncila and the bulletin Poslusni Duhu (for which he was the editor-in-chief) show Conciliar directedness of the Catholic Church towards ecumenism. Sagi-Bunic was certainly the leading person of the ecumenical movements in Croatia in the post-conciliar times.