The Unity of Europe and Marko Marulić

Europe, the space bounded by the Baltic, the Urals, the Mediterranean and the Atlantic is much more than a geographical reality. It has its own history, development and identity, the objective to which it aspires, and the mission that has been confided to it. Europe appears as a complex historical reality, composed of numerous traditions, arts, memories, customs, religions, philosophies and cultures. Europe has two faces: one is the geographical and the material, the other is the spiritual and cultural, which has long been formed, and which is still being formed, becoming the while the clearer to itself, as is hence its mission to the world. European civilisation spilled over from its Greek cradle, supported by the Roman genius for organisation and law, to the new European spaces and the new nations. One of the constitutive factors in the development of a single Europe has certainly been played by religion: in the Greek and Roman world, the polytheistic, and with the downfall of the Empire the principle of unity became Christianity. Christianity gradually unified, under its wing, all the different nations, with their more or less developed cultures, customs and organisations. In spite of the differences, they were all joined by their common faith in Christ. Through the Middle Ages, in the great diversity of European nations, the Church represented the realty of Europe, that which bound and united. Gradually Europe rose above its division into barbarian and non-barbarian nations, and was formed as a community of nations that were linked by the same religious awareness that aimed also at political unity: one flock – one shepherd, realising thus the medieval idea and aspiration ordinatio ad unum of the whole respublica Christiana. Europe approached the ideal unus populus, una civitas, unum corpus mysticum. This unity was during the Middle Ages constantly threatened by some of the Christian rulers, who wanted to impose and expand their rule; the unity of Eu-rope was particularly in jeopardy at the end of the Middle Ages from the Otto-man incursions and the imposition of Islam as a new religion. Marko Marulić was also faced with these challenges; he did not think theoretically about the unity of Europe, but in response to the stimulus of the dramatic adversities his people were faced with. In the belief in Jesus Christ he found the strength to bring the Christian rulers and peoples together again in a common defence, and in Rome, in the pope, he found the authority needed to lead to this new unity. Marulić is represented as a European and Christian Humanist who consciously wants and consciously builds the unity of Europe through a harmonious balance between the national and the supranational, the Croatian and the European. Aware of the fact that Europe itself, as community of different nations and cultures, can achieve unity only thanks to belief in Christ, he consciously endeavours to bring the light of Christ’s gospel into the culture of Europe, and at the same time to reveal his own culture, guided by the principles of Christ’s message