92 IVO BANAC
from the printing of the Zagreb Bible (in 1968, in a first edition of
60,000 copies, by the state publishing house Stvarnost) to Mali
Koncil (Small Council), a newspaper for children (in regular edi-
tions of 100,000 copies).40 Kršćanska Sadašnjost (Christian Con-
temporaneity)—the Center for Conciliar Research, Documenta-
tion, and Information—became the key intellectual institution
in these endeavors. From the end of the 1960s to the beginning
of the 1970s, the Church was in the thrall of its great construc-
tion projects: the building of new churches and sacral objects and
the redecoration of old church premises in cooperation with some
leading artists, such as Ivo Dulčić, Djuro Seder, and Josip Biffel.
The most important effect of the Council and the relaxation
in relations with the state was a wholehearted surge in the en-
gagement of lay churchgoers, especially the student youth, on the
wave of the 1968 student revolt, but without the burden shared
by the Second World War generation. The Institute for the Theo-
logical Culture of Laity—founded in 1968 at the Catholic Theologi-
cal Faculty in Zagreb—as well as a number of church choirs and
religious instruction groups in various Zagreb churches played an
enormous role in this process. Some, led by prominent instruc-
tors, were particularly distinguished: Ivan Cvitanović and Živko
Kustić (St. Peter in Vlaška ulica), Tadej Vojnović (St. Francis on
the Kaptol), Josip Ćurić (the Shrine of the Most Precious Heart
in Palmotićeva ulica), Franjo Jurak and Josip Frkin (Bl. Marko
Križevčanin), Žarko Kraljević (Mary Help of Christians at Knežija),
Ivan Čagalj (St. Joseph, Trešnjevka), and Tomislav Šagi-Bunić
(St. Michael in Dubrava).
The most important places of student socialization were the
academic church of St. Catherine in Zagreb’s Upper Town and
the chapel of Wounded Jesus on the then-Republic Square (now
Josip Jelačić Square), where Josip Turčinović, a prominent theo-
- The chief editors were Jure Kaštelan, a prominent poet and party member,
and Bonaventura Duda, a Franciscan friar and Bible scholar.