Pannonhalmi Szemle
Review of Pannonhalma

The quarterly Pannonhalmi Szemle (Review of Pannonhalma) started in 1993 with the purpose of providing space for dialogue between culture and theology, so as to explore the meeting points of these two diverging worlds. Edited by the Pannonhalma Arch abbey, the Review aims at cultivating a living contact with a modern understanding on the sesquimillennial tradition of Benedictine spirituality primarily by maintaining an unbiased openness to present-day values. Among the editors are members of the monastic community (Chief-editor Fr. Elemér Sulyok, Editors Fr. Antal Hirka and Fr. Mátyás Varga) as well as lay persons from the immediate spiritual environment of the abbey (Editors Gábor Gelencsér,József Tillmann, Dániel Schmal) Each issue is dedicated to a particular theme. Thus, the articles and translations published in our quarterly are often specifically requested for the Pannonhalmi Szemle. One of our goals is to provide the opportunity to be published not only for already well-known authors but also for talented writers of the younger generation. We have several foreign correspondents (Hungarian speakers, as well as foreign language speakers), who in addition to regularly reporting on the theological and cultural press of particular Western- and Eastern European countries also send us their own articles. A number of writings were first published in the Pannonhalmi Szemle. In these past few years many translations have come into existence, the publication of which represents an important milestone in Hungarian public life. After the first decade of its existence, we can make the statement that the subtle presence of the Pannonhalmi Szemle has become an original and significant part of the cultural scene in today's Hungary. Over and above any self-evaluation, let us quote the fifth anniversary appraisal for the quarterly from Béla Bacsó, Professor at Eötvös University: "This periodical neither summons nor demands. In a time of apodictic truth articulated into statements, could there be any greater word of praise? To undertake the longer road, the bypass, which does not reduce its focus on merely achieving its goal: that serves as a basis for the faith and the cultural mission to which these pages are devoted. They change one's disposition and make one face himself by raising questions to which no one can hope for an easy answer." (Élet és Irodalom, 1/5/1998) The periodical received the Pulitzer Prize in 2001.