In Our Time: Sixty Years of Rare Dialogues
This year marks sixty years since the promulgation of Catholic Church document Nostra Aetate, the last to be issued before the closure of the Second Vatican II Council. Much has been written about its courage and historical importance, and indeed it opened a necessary passage for a renewed relationship between the Church and the Jewish people. Yet, anniversaries invite us to measure how far we have truly walked. There is no triumph in anniversaries of this kind. There is gratitude, vigilance, and the sober awareness that such work unfolds not in decades but in generations, and always with fragile steps.
For Christians, the question remains inseparable from the rhythm of the liturgical year. In the East, the Sunday after Pentecost is dedicated to All Saints, to all those in whom the Holy Spirit bore fruit in every language and people. The following Sunday remembers local saints, those formed in the particular soil of each land and tongue. The sequence is striking: holiness is local, subsequently universal. It is native thus “catholic”. Pentecost first, identity second. This order is not a detail. It teaches that sanctity is not tribal property, and the Spirit does not bless one people at the expense of another. “In every nation, whoever fears Him and does what is right is acceptable to Him” (Acts 10:35).
When the Catholic Church in 1965 affirmed anew that its life is rooted in the “stock of Abraham” (Nostra Aetate §4), it did not invent a truth. It returned to it. Saint Paul had already said that the nations were grafted into a living tree, and that the gifts and calling of God to Israel are “irrevocable” (Romans 11:29).
The Council rejected the tragic habit of attributing collective guilt for the death of Christ to the Jewish people, a habit that had distorted Christian memory and imagination. Yet it is one thing to correct a doctrinal misunderstanding, and another thing to ease a reflex formed across centuries. The aim is not to reproach the Church for this slowness, but to recognize the nature of her life: healing of memory is gradual, and spiritual vision ripens through prayer, humility, and time.
Within the Catholic world, sincere efforts were made after the Council, and statements accumulated. Yet tone and instinct did not always follow at once. The expression “elder brothers,” though intended affectionately, implied a chronology rather than an abiding covenantal kinship. The revised Good Friday prayer retained a reference to the Jewish people attaining “the fullness of redemption.” In isolation, such a phrase may appear benign. Yet in the context of long history, it inevitably sounds like an expectation of theological completion rather than mutual reverence. Such prayers do not exist in the Jewish prayer books, nor in the Eastern Orthodox ones. Dialogue becomes delicate whenever one side suspects that conversation is a prelude to absorption, and not a recognition of the other’s integrity before God.
In the Orthodox world, the situation unfolded differently. The Eastern Churches did not participate in Vatican II and thus are not directly concerned by Nostra Aetate. Still, some Orthodox scholars were present during the working sessions of the Council Fathers. Some gestures and statements were made over the years: Patriarch Bartholomew, for example, has spoken of Jews and Christians as sharing spiritual descent from Abraham and called hostility toward Jews a spiritual failure. But here too, much lies not in official declarations but in conscience formed slowly. Orthodoxy’s history includes lofty theological depth and also the temptation of religious nationalism. These two currents still coexist uneasily.
It is therefore all the more precious to recall figures who lived beyond their time. Vladimir Solovyev, long before any council text, wrote that contempt for the Jewish people is a betrayal of the Gospel, because Christianity cannot sever itself from the people of the Messiah. (“Jewry and the Christian Question” (Еврейство и христианский вопрос) — essay published in Russian in 1884–1885 – The Burning Bush: Writings on Jews and Judaism (edited by Gregory Yuri Glazov) – includes annotated English translations of Solovyev’s essays on the “Jewish Question.” (Notre Dame University Press, 2016)).
Fr. Alexander Men, a priest of Jewish origin who served under Soviet persecution, taught that Christianity is not a new tree, but a branch grafted onto the root of Israel. His murder in 1990 remains a bitter reminder that clarity can cost life. Such witnesses represent not diplomatic gestures, but a spiritual truth lived in vulnerability and fidelity. They are not many, but truth often begins with the few who speak without fear and without resentment. (History of Religion: In Search of the Way, the Truth and the Life (Vol. 1) – English translation by Ivan Bazarov, Nestyazhateli Press, 2021).
At the same time, Orthodoxy, like other Christian traditions, has known moments of ambiguity. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, whose moral grandeur in resisting totalitarianism is unquestioned, wrote about Jewish–Russian history in a manner that, despite his stated opposition to antisemitism, did not fully escape national interpretation. Such ambiguity is not unique to Russia. In many Christian cultures, especially where identity and survival intertwine, the memory of Israel has been filtered through national mythology rather than through the humility of Romans 11. The danger is not hatred, but reduction – seeing the Jewish people as symbol rather than as living covenantal reality. (Two Hundred Years Together (Двести лет вместе) — two-volume historical essay (vols I & II) on Jews in Russia, published 2001–2002).
Liturgical language also carries memory. Byzantine hymns written in the early centuries reflect sharp debates, often originally internal to Judaism and the emerging Church. Over time, their rhetorical tone was heard not as fraternal dispute within one spiritual family but as accusation toward another nation. In the Latin tradition, the Good Friday petition was moderated but not entirely freed from tension. Liturgy must not be rewritten lightly or hastily; it is part of the Church’s breathing. Yet prayer must be pronounced with discernment of heart, so that ancient polemics do not speak louder than the Gospel’s charity. Purifying the intention with which words are carried is already a work of grace.
Jewish thinkers, too, recognized the need for honest encounter. Martin Buber insisted on a dialogue in which neither partner ceases to be itself. Hans Urs von Balthasar responded in Einsame Zwiesprache mit Martin Buber, sensing the deep difficulty and necessity of a conversation in which both remain faithful to their identities before God (I and Thou (Ich und Du), 1923. Balthasar: Einsame Zwiesprache mit Martin Buber (1958; German).
Lévinas wrote of the need for Christian civilization to examine the ethical shadow of its theological imagination. Rav Kook, in his mystical writings, envisioned a universal elevation of humanity arising from Israel’s vocation, not in opposition but in service and blessing. None of these voices suggested that one tradition must dissolve into the other. They spoke of difference without enmity, proximity without fusion, and of the divine patience that sustains history. (Emmanuel Levinas, Difficult Freedom: Essays on Judaism (1963). Includes his reflections on ethics, the face of the other, and Jewish-Christian relations & Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaKohen Kook, Orot HaKodesh (Lights of Holiness) — writings by Rav Kook on Jewish spirituality and the universal vocation of Israel).
Yet the greatest wound remains the Shoah. It was perpetrated in lands long baptized, by societies that had received the Gospel. While many Christians resisted and suffered for this, others remained indifferent, and institutional repentance has been uneven. The shame is not resolved by statements alone. It is a call to vigilance. One does not move quickly past such a chasm; one learns to stand before it in humility.
The term “deicide” has shaped Christian imagination for centuries. While the Gospels emphasize both human betrayal and Christ’s voluntary self-offering (“No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord,” John 10:18), the narrative of responsibility hardened historically into ethnic accusation. Patristic sources speak of universal guilt – every sinner participates in the Crucifixion – yet this theological universality did not prevent a tragic narrowing toward a specific people.
The paradox of our time is therefore sharp. Antisemitism rises again in many places. Israel faces mortal threats and grave accusations simultaneously. Criticism of state policy is legitimate – as it would be for any nation – yet often the tone reveals more than the content. Moral language sometimes masquerades as inherited resentment. When a people historically deprived of power exercises power, judgment becomes more complicated, and those who once condemned Christian silence may now forget their own history when speaking of Jewish vulnerability. To speak of Israel today requires ethical seriousness and historical memory together. The point is not to justify all actions; it is to resist ancient habits of condemnation disguised as moral clarity.
Nostra Aetate marked a beginning. True rapprochement asks for a sanctification of speech. Christians must learn to speak of Israel not as a problem nor as a theological category, but as people called by God and still walking under His promise. Jews must continue to hear in Christianity not only the echoes of persecution but also the genuine desire of many believers for reconciliation and mutual blessing. Rashi had defined that the Gentiles of this generation are not heathens/pagans, idolatry (On Deuteronomy 23:19).
Both must recognize that God’s ways are larger than our certainties and that humility is not weakness but strength of spirit. It will take centuries to heal centuries of estrangement-Entfremdung. (See my previous blog article: “Silence and Return of Paganism in Europe”, ToI English dated Sep 20, 2025)
Sixty years are a brief moment in sacred history. If we look backwards, the distance traversed is not small; if we look forward, the road ahead is long. Reconciliation is not achieved by declarations nor by sentiment, but by patience, truthfulness, and fidelity to the God who called Abraham from Ur to bless all nations. Holiness does not fear difference; it reveals the divine mystery in every human face. If we continue to walk without haste, without forgetfulness, and without resignation, then perhaps the promise given to our fathers will be glimpsed not only in Scripture but in our time: “In your seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” (Genesis 22:18).