VATICAN II AND THE COLD WAR 45lease of Slipyj.39 On January 25, 1963, Semyon Kozyrev, the So-
viet ambassador to Italy, brought Amintore Fanfani, president of
the Italian Council, a message from Khrushchev announcing that
Slipyj was to be released. On February 10, Slipyj, accompanied
from Moscow by Willebrands, arrived quietly in Rome.40
Slipyj’s release was a major step in improving relations be-
tween the Holy See and the Kremlin, as Khrushchev told Fan-
fani.41 A short time later, Khrushchev arranged for his son-in-
law, Alexis Adzhubei, to be assigned as the Rome correspondent
for Izvestia. On March 7, 1963, when John XIII received the Bal-
zan Prize for peace, he received Adzhubei and his wife, Rada, in
a private audience.42 Such overtures, however, did not mean that
Khrushchev was softening his stance on religion. As Adzhubei
later recounted, despite Khrushchev’s opening to the Vatican, at
home he showed no desire of occupying himself with religious
questions. While some Orthodox and Catholic priests were re-
leased from the Gulag, others were imprisoned on accusations of
“anti-Soviet ideology and of negative Western influence.”43
Nonetheless, it was the dawn of a new era. When John XXIII
died in June, in a little-reported event, four British minesweep-
ers and a Soviet freighter in Genoa harbor flew their flags at half-
mast.44 It is most improbable that the captain of the Soviet ship
took this action without the Kremlin’s approval. TASS also praised
the pope’s efforts for peace, especially in his encyclical Pacem in
terris.45 “Good Pope John” had made his mark on the Communist
world.
John XXIII’s willingness to take a risk and to move beyond
- Cousins, Improbable Triumvirate, 66; Capovilla, Giovanni XXIII, 273n.
- Zizola, Utopia, 146–50.
- For a summary of all the steps taken for Slipyj’s release, as well as its signifi-
cance, see Riccardi, Il Vaticano e Mosca, 242–45. - Capovilla, Giovanni XXIII, 454–55.
- Quoted at Riccardi, Il Vaticano e Mosca, 250.
- New York Times, June 5, 1963.
- Ibid.