VATICAN II AND THE COLD WAR 29did the Osservatore Romano report this exchange of messages.3
In the course of this rapprochement between the Vatican and
the Kremlin, John XXIII began negotiating for the presence at
the Council of bishops from the Soviet Bloc. Here he used the
services of Archbishop Francesco Lardone, apostolic delegate to
Turkey, a post that John XXIII had himself held during World
War II, well before his elevation to the papacy. Largely through
Lardone’s efforts, the First Session witnessed the presence of
one bishop from Bulgaria, two bishops and an administrator
from Hungary—József Cardinal Mindszenty, archbishop of Esz-
tergom, remained sequestered in the American embassy in Bu-
dapest—four from Czechoslovakia, and three vicars capitular
from the Soviet Union itself. With the arrival of a large Polish
contingent, including Karol Wojtyła—the future John Paul II,
auxiliary bishop of Kraków from 1958 to 1964—a total of thirty-
five bishops from the Soviet Bloc were present at the First Ses-
sion. Efforts to obtain the presence of bishops from China were,
unfortunately, unsuccessful.4
The overtures between John XXIII and Khrushchev laid the
groundwork for one of the most significant preconciliar ecumen-
ical endeavors. The pope envisioned his council as an invitation
to Christian unity, but the initial response was mixed. One of the
first to respond was Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople,
previously the Metropolitan of the Greek Orthodox archdiocese
of North and South America, headquartered in New York. In De-
cember 1959 he issued a statement from Jerusalem expressing
his hope for the eventual reunion of the Orthodox and Catholic
churches.
On Christmas Day, Athenagoras invited Francis Cardinal Spell-
- New York Times, December 17, 1961; New York Times, December 1, 1961; see
also Francesco Capovilla, Giovanni XXIII: Lettere, 1958–1963 (Rome: Edizioni di storia
e letteratura, 1978), 337. - Alberigo and Komonchak, eds., History of Vatican II, 1:402–3, 483–94; Riccar-
di, Il Vaticano e Mosca, 232–35.