The Southern Slav Revolution
In the beginning of the sixteenth century, a preacher of the Gospel in Trieste and Laibach, Primus Trubar, published successively the New Testament, Psalter and Catechism in the vulgar Slovene language. It produced the greatest imaginable excitement amongst the Slovene clergy and people. Christ and the Prophets spoke for the first time to the people in mountainous Carniola and Istria in a language that the people could understand. A minority of the clergy shared the popular excitement, whereas the majority was filled with fury against the innovator. But Trubar went his way courageously and continued to publish and republish the sacred books in the Slovene tongue. The affair had the usual ending: the violent persecution of the disturbers of the semper eadem, and the victory of the persecuted cause. Trubar died in exile from his country, his books were burnt, the churches in which his books had been read pulled down, and the people who dared to speak with Christ and the Prophets in their native language terrified. At the same time, the Turks, after having devastated Serbia and Croatia, descended on Slovenia with the sword, burning pulling down, and terrifying everywhere.
Yet the great question of the ecclesiastical language could not be stifled. Even before and after Trubar, the Slavs on the Adriatic coast of Dalmatia and Istria insisted on the so-called Glagoliza as the language which should be used in the divine service. Glagoliza is not the common language of the Croats and Slovenes, but it is an old and sacred form of the same tongue. Rome opposed for a long time, declined afterwards, opposed or half-opposed again, till the question is to-day brought to a very acute phase. Pope Paul V permitted the use of the Glagoliza in the Church. This permission was repeated by John VIII. and Urban VIII. There was printed a Missale Romanum, slavicâ linguâ, glagolitico charactere (Rome, 1893). Still, one can say that although it is theoretically allowed, it is practically forbidden. It is used to-day in some new places, like Krk, Cherso, Zara, Sebenico, in Senj, Spalato, etc. But the fact remains that the Southern Slavs, or the Slavs generally, do not like the Latin language in the divine service. For the Slav conscience it is something incongruous: the Latin language of Nero and the spirit of Christ. Every language is the bearer of a certain spirit. Latin is the bearer of a juristic and despotic spirit. Ranke said: “The Papal Church is a legacy of ancient Rome.”1 If this be true, the language doubtless was one of the principal reasons for it. With the language of the Cæsars also crept into the Church the spirit of the Cæsars. This spirit was brought to a triumph in 1870 at the Council of the Vatican.
As the Croats and Slovenes protested against the language of the Cæsars, so they protested also against the triumphant spirit of the Cæsars in the Church. Bishop Strossmayer opposed the dogma of Papal Infallibility with a sincerity, obstinacy and eloquence which can be compared only with the spirit of the “golden age” of Christian history. In a letter to an old Catholic friend, he wrote: “It is nonsense to say that the Popes cannot live without these miserable rags called temporary possessions.”2 Is this not true apostolic language? Again he wrote: “What occurs to-day in Rome is obviously God’s punishment and at the same time a providential way to those reforms which the Church needs in order to fulfil her mission with more success in the future than she has done till now.” And to Dr. Döllinger he confessed quite openly: “And what about my nation and its future? It seems to me quite certain that it will one day get rid of Roman despotism.”