Message of His Beatitude Daniel, Patriarch of Romania, on the day of the burial of Cardinal Tomáš Špidlík, Velehrad, Czech Republic, 30 April 2010:

Your Eminencies,
Your Excellencies,
Grieving gathering,

'I look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the age to come'
(The Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed)

Christ is Risen!

The passing away of His Eminence Cardinal Tomáš Špidlík brought about in our hearts, of those who knew him, both personally and through his prestigious academic and publishing activity, a feeling of pious remembrance.

His monographs dedicated to the Eastern Christianity culminated with The Spirituality of the Christian East, an extraordinary work of synthesis to which fame and recognition in the Orthodox world of his authority in the field is acknowledged. Conceived in four parts, this work is certainly the most extensive presentation of the Eastern spirituality that has ever been written by a Roman Catholic theologian. We can say that here there is a genuine 'summa spiritualitatis' based on an almost exhaustive research on the Eastern spirituality, extracted from the whole of the Eastern spiritual literature and interpreted with scientific strictness. The books of Cardinal Špidlík, translated into several European languages, including Romanian, were greatly appreciated by Christians and that is another proof of both the benefits of their content and the expertise of the author.

The setting up of the 'Ezio Aletti' Study and Research Centre attached to the Pontifical Oriental Institute is another example of his commitment and desire for a rapprochement between the theology and the culture of Western and Eastern Europe.

Cardinal Tomáš Špidlík has spoken several times about the Romanian people, whom he saw as a 'surprising keeper of the Christian faith and traditional values'(From his Speech on the day he was awarded the title of Doctor Honoris Causa of Babes-Bolyai University from Cluj-Napoca, 29 May 1997), mentioning also, on various occasions, his friendly relations, through the exchange of letters, with Rev. Prof. Dumitru Stăniloae. We still remember the words of Cardinal Špidlík about Romania's special vocation in our time, whose contribution to the progress of Europe is still unjustly minimised both in the West and in the East. In this sense, he gave the example of Saint John Cassian, a proto-Romanian from Scythia Minor, who was one of the greatest personalities that built the bridge between Eastern and Western cultures.

In this Pascal period, when we look to and put our hope in the Resurrection of Christ - the guarantee of our own resurrection - we pray the Merciful God to rest in peace the soul of His servant, late Cardinal Tomáš Špidlík, a friend of Orthodoxy and promoter of the unity of the Church of Christ.

May his memory be eternal!


†Daniel Patriarch of Romania