54 ÁRPÁD VON KLIMÓ
used by journalists and scholars beginning in the 1970s to de-
scribe West Germany’s policy of détente toward the Soviet Union,
Poland, and other Communist countries. In the context of Ca-
tholicism, it referred to a new, more conciliatory approach that
the Vatican applied in its relationship with Communist countries
beginning during the papacy of Pope John XXIII.
Communist apparatchiks who were responsible for the sup-
pression or marginalization of the activities and influence of
churches in their societies initially regarded Vatican II and the new
conciliatory approach of John XXIII as a significant threat. The
chairman of the Council on Church Affairs at the Council of Min-
isters of the Soviet Union, Aleksei Puzin, feared that John XXIII’s
invitation of non-Catholic Christian leaders to take part in the
Vatican assembly could result in the establishment of a unified,
anti-Communist Christian front.10
However, in 1962, the Soviet, East German, Hungarian, and
Czechoslovak Communist leaderships began to see the Council
as an opportunity to gather more—and, more importantly, bet-
ter—information about the “bulwark of imperialism” in Rome
and, at the same time, to gain more influence on opinion inside
the Catholic camp. Historians like Nicolas Bauquet and Csaba Sz-
abó have recently begun to investigate, based on findings in the
Archives of the Hungarian State Security Service, how Commu-
nist Hungary started to spin a web of spies inside and around the
Vatican beginning in 1962.11 Importantly, both the Vatican and
can: Ostpolitik,” Religion in Communist Lands 4, no. 4 (1976). The standard book was
Stehle, Eastern Politics of the Vatican, 1917–1979. With regard to the most recent re-
search, see Karl-Joseph Hummel, ed., Vatikanische Ostpolitik unter Johannes XXIII.
und Paul VI. 1958–1978 (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1999); Cerny-Werner, Vatikanische
Ostpolitik und die DDR.
- Fejérdy, “A szocialista tömb és a II. Vatikáni Zsinat,” in Felekezetek, egyház-
politika, identitás Magyarországon és Szlovákiában 1945 után., ed. András Sándor Koc-
sis (Budapest: Kossuth, 2008), 212. - Csaba Szabó, A Szentszék és a Magyar Népköztársaság kapcsolatai a hatvanas
években (Budapest: Szent István Társulat/Magyar Országos Levéltár, 2005). On the