INTRODUCTION 23frame the chapter’s overview of the Cold War context surround-
ing Vatican II—the arms race, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Ostpo-
litik—as well as close attention to the story of Ukrainian Greek
Catholic archbishop Josyf Slipyj. Imprisoned from 1945 to 1963
within the USSR, Slipyj ultimately benefited from efforts by the
Holy See to secure his release, made possible also by American
involvement. Slipyj’s story attests to the ability of Soviet and
American diplomats to work with the Church in the spirit of ag-
giornamento to temper Soviet confessional policy and to achieve
concrete results through international dialogue and peace.
The case of Hungary, too, attested to the ability of the Holy
See to make diplomatic headway with Communist regimes. As
Árpád von Klimó demonstrates, however, along the way the re-
gime co-opted the national episcopate to a significant degree.
The Partial Agreement concluded in 1964 between the Commu-
nist regime and the Holy See lent legitimacy to a roster of Hun-
garian bishops and theologians participating in the Council who
were either puppets of the regime or outright secret-police in-
formants. Nonetheless, the debates and decisions taken at the
Council reached Hungary, inspiring movements like Regnum
Marianum and Bokor, as well as top-down liturgical reform by
the Hungarian episcopate.
The volume’s third chapter, written by Ivo Banac, concerns
the story of Vatican II and Communist Yugoslavia. Banac’s path-
breaking research on Vatican II’s significance for Tito’s realm
appears here for the first time in English.66 The Council gener-
ated serious hopes for confessional and political liberalization,
in particular among Croatian Catholics getting news from Rome
in the pages of Glas Koncila (Voice of the council). These hopes
seemed to find confirmation in subsequent years, with Yugosla-
via’s conclusion with the Holy See of a protocol in 1966 and full
- Ivo Banac, Hrvati i Crkva: Kratka povijest hrvatskog katoličanstva u modernosti
(Zagreb: Svjetlo riječi, 2013).