Viaţa euharistică şi martiriul creştin: Punerea sub semnul întrebării a etosului secular al Europei
The Eucharist life and the Christian martyrdom: questioning the secular ethos in Europe

Summary/Abstract: Eucharistic union with Christ unifies Christians with the saints who followed Christ. The recent martyrs under Communism turn His distant cross into a reality of our day. Their relics bring the witness of un-reduced Christianity to deeply secularized societies. This essay reflects on the importance of these relics for a European Union that discounts Europe's Christian past. Their veneration discloses the incoherence of that Union's secular ethos: While affirming religious freedom, that ethos subjects the exercise of such freedom to the conditions imposed by its own secular commitments. Its affirmation of respect for human dignity both encourages autonomy, thus disparaging the Christian exercise of authority, and imposes affirmative recognition of the ways in which autonomy is used, thus discouraging Christian discernment. Taking its bearings from the witness of the recent martyrs, this essay shows how the conflict between secular and Christian understandings of freedom surfaces in policies of public school education, policies of cultural re-education, and in the distorted witness of the posttraditional Christianities dominating the Union.

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