The Patriarch of Constantinople Embraces Fidel Castro. And Forgets about the Prisons
The dictator of Cuba grants a church to the Orthodox. But he´s clamping down even harder on the opposition. A new arrest and an appeal by Oswaldo Payá to the patriarch, who is silent
by Sandro Magister
ROMA -ÊPrecisely six years after the pope, the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, has arrived in Cuba, invited and welcomed by Fidel Castro with all of the honors due to the head of a friendly state.
But during the same time, the vise has been tightened on the opponents of the regime. The Monday before the patriarch´s arrival saw the arrest, in Havana, of medical doctor Flavio Javier Labrador Freige, a member of the Movimiento Cristiano Liberación and a promoter of the Varela Project. This project is a referendum for civil liberties requested according to constitutional norms by a burgeoning group of Catholic activists - a good number of whom are in prison - and courageously endorsed by more than 12,000 Cuban citizens.
Castro permitted Bartholomew I to inaugurate, on January 25, the first Orthodox church in Cuba, in the heart of Old Havana: it is a freshly restored building, constructed in 1950 and long used as a children´s theater.
There are about 1,000 Orthodox Christians in Cuba. Most of them arrived on the island from Russia or Ukraine, when these nations were part of the Soviet Union, the great patron of the Castro regime. But it was the few dozen Orthodox of Greek origin who lobbied for the church. They received significant support from the government of Athens and the metropolitan of Panama and Central America, Athenagoras, who until 1966 was affiliated with the patriarchate of Constantinople. The former king of Greece, Constantine, also came to the inauguration of the church. Fidel Castro seized this opportunity, and conducted with Bartholomew I a publicity stunt that would have been impossible with the current patriarch of Moscow, more opposed than ever to anything that recalls the hateful Soviet oppression.
And the patriarch followed the script diligently. He met with no dissidents during his visit to Cuba. The appeal made to him by the most famous member of the democratic opposition, Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, president of the Movimiento Cristiano Liberación and national coordinator of the Varela Project, passed by in silence. He inducted Castro into the Order of St. Andrew, the highest honorary award among the Greek Orthodox. And at the end of a conversation with Jaime Cardinal Ortega y Alamino, the archbishop of Havana and a severe critic of the regime, nothing leaked out of what they said to each other.
For his part, Metropolitan Athenagoras found it important to emphasize that "the Orthodox community of Cuba is placed under the office of religious affairs, and is not involved in Western politics."
In his appeal to the patriarch - reproduced below in full - Oswaldo Payá recalls that hundreds of men and women languish in Cuban prisons for the sole crime of "proclaiming the truth and defending man´s God-given rights."
John Paul II himself had asked that the prisoners be freed, in particular the 75 jailed last spring. But Castro has rejected all appeals.
And on January 19 the arrest of Flavio Javier Labrador Freige came as a threat of increased persecution.
Labrador was arrested in front of the school to which he had accompanied his daughter Laura. He was transferred to an unknown destination and interrogated for six hours by Seguridad men. They threatened to "make life impossible for him, his wife, and their children," to "separate him from his friends" and to "ruin his marriage." Returning him to his home, they gave him four months. They assured him that, if he continues to promote the Varela Project, he "will have twenty years of hard prison time at Camaguey," Cuba´s most infamous prison.
Embraces with the patriarch and an iron fist with the opposition: this is a doubletime march for which Fidel Castro has already trained. In March of 2003 he did the same thing, giving a convent to Brigittine sister Tekla Famiglettti with the blessing of Crescenzio Cardinal Sepe, while at the same time he was preparing to arrest and sentence to many years in prison 75 opposition members, many of them Catholics. The archbishop of Havana and the other Cuban bishops judged themselves so severely damaged by this move that they did not hesitate to denounce Cardinal Sepe publicly and protest vigorously to the highest Vatican authorities.
Here is the original version of the appeal - unheeded - made to Patriarch Bartholomew I by the president of the Movimiento Cristiano Liberación and the national coordinator of the Varela Project, Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas:
A Su Toda Santidad Patriarca Ecuménico BartolomeoQuerido Pastor de la Iglesia Ortodoxa:
Le damos la bienvenida en Cuba, tierra cristiana que ha sufrido en las últimas décadas el intento de descristianización de su memoria, su vida y su cultura por un régimen que, sabía que para someter a todas las personas y a toda la persona, tenía que arrancar primero el nombre de Dios de los corazones. Pero la Fe prevaleció y se ha sostenido en medio de muchos sufrimientos, persecuciones, discriminaciones, destierros y martirios. Hombres y mujeres, ancianos y niños, sacerdotes, pastores, religiosos y laicos, animados por el amor de Dios, predicando el Evangelio y sirviendo a nuestro pueblo.
Es este, nuestro pueblo, el que le recibe con amor y respeto y espera su palabra inspirada en el Espíritu Santo, que siempre será palabra de reconciliación, perdón, de libertad y liberación.
Queremos enviar con Su Toda Santidad nuestro mensaje de amor y amistad a todos nuestros hermanos de la Iglesia Ortodoxa en el mundo entero, pero también, a todos los seres humanos, pues sabemos que es Usted un peregrino incansable que anda por el mundo tendiendo puentes de amor. Damos también este mensaje al Consejo de Iglesias de los Estados Unidos de América de visita en nuestro país.
Muchos miran a Cuba, a través de intereses, de ideologías, de resentimientos o sentimientos superficiales.
Les pedimos que lleven nuestro mensaje:
Nosotros queremos la paz, queremos la reconciliación, queremos y podemos realizar nuestro propio proyecto cubano de justicia y democracia. Pero con la libertad que Dios Nuestro Señor nos ha otorgado. No venimos al mundo para adorar un hombre y someternos a un partido, ni para ver como unos pocos con todo el poder, tienen los privilegios y son los ricos mientras le niegan todo al pueblo y convierten cualquier expresión de libertad en un delito y la vida en angustia. Dicen "socialismo o muerte", pero nosotros decimos "libertad y vida".
Hay cientos de hombres y mujeres prisioneros en nuestro país. Algunos en verdaderas jaulas de crueldad, como lo están "Los Prisioneros de la Primavera de Cuba". Están presos por proclamar la verdad, por alentar la reconciliación y por defender los derechos que más que derechos son dones que Dios entrega al ser humano. Por eso los que miren a Cuba, que vean más de once millones de seres humanos que tienen derecho a los derechos y que nunca hemos escogido ni escogeremos un orden sin derechos como el que nos oprime ahora. No solo estamos defendiendo los derechos humanos, estamos defendiendo el derecho a ser humanos, ahora que tantas fuerzas en Cuba y en el mundo pretenden desfigurar el cuerpo y el alma de los que fuimos creados hijos de Dios y por eso muy dignos, para el amor y la libertad.
Los que quieran ser respetuosos con el pueblo cubano, los que quieran defender nuestra autodeterminación, los que quieran ser solidarios con el pueblo cubano, los que quieran contribuir a la paz entre los cubanos y con Cuba, que apoyen los cambios pacíficos hacia la democracia en nuestro país que estamos impulsando en la persecución. Que apoyen la consulta popular, el Referendo y el diálogo que queremos los cubanos. Que reclamen la liberación de los prisioneros políticos. Que levanten la voz y eleven su oración por nuestro pueblo silenciado, pero que no pierde la esperanza, ni su condición de pueblo marcado por el siglo de La Caridad.
Le expresamos a Su Toda Santidad Patriarca Ecuménico Bartolomeo, nuestro amor y respeto y le pedimos su bendición.
Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas
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The website of the movement directed by Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, with information on the Varela Project:
> Movimiento Cristiano Liberación__________
The precedent of March 2003, with the embrace between Fidel Castro and Crescenzio Cardinal Sepe:
> Diplomatic Mishaps. Tower of Babylon Reigns Between Cuba and Rome (9.5.2003)
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Other articles about Cuba on this website:
> Cuba: The Bishops Are Sick of the Revolution, and They´re Writing About It (1.10.2003)
> In Cuba, Freedom of the Press Finds Refuge in the Church (4.7.2003)
> Cuba. Fidel Castro Increasingly Fearful of Catholics (11.4.2003)
> A Regime Change for Havana, Too. The Peaceful Way of the Cuban Church (10.3.2003)
> Gadhafi, Castro, Champions of Liberty: Rewarded by the U.N., Rejected by a Cardinal (16.1.2003)
> Fidel Castro proclama il dogma dell´intoccabilità (13.6.2002)
> Cuba. Un referendum per la democrazia. Su questi cinque punti (12.6.2002)
> Solidarnosc in salsa cubana (17.5.2002)
> Don Sturzo sbarca a Cuba (19.2.2002)
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English translation by Matthew Sherry:
> traduttore@hotmail.comGo to the home page of
> www.chiesa.espressonline.it/english, to access the latest articles and links to other resources.
Sandro Magister´s e-mail address is
s.magister@espressoedit.it
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28.1.2004
