Modus vivendi with Moscow? The 1945 Flynn Mission and Pius XII’s Eastern Politics

Abstract

One of the open questions in the historiography of the Vatican-Kremlin relations after World War II, is whether bilateral dialogue and reaching an agreement was prevented by the caution and anti-communist priciples of Pope Pius XII, or rather by the aloofness of the Soviet Union. Based on the newly opened Vatican sources, the paper examines the mission of Edward J. Flynn, an American Demo-crat politician, who in February-March of 1945 attempted to mediate between the two parties. After a brief review of the assessment of the Flynn mission in scolarly literature, the paper first outlines the course of events, then evaluates the goals and perspectives of the ac-tors involved. It concludes that although Moscow sought to loosen relations between local churches and Rome, and the Holy See made the guarantee of religious freedom a condition of negotiations, Pius XII still sought contact and was ready to send an apostolic visitor to Soviet-occupied territories to gather information on the situation of the Catholic Church there.