Summary

From January 2002 through October 2003, Znak's Flying University, which was designed to conduct a series of lectures open to the listening public, held meetings in Kraków and several other Polish cities that attracted wide audiences, ones whose numbers ran into the hundreds and sometimes into the thousands.

Unfortunately, the Flying University had to be suspended. Temporarily, as is our wish. While continuing to harbor the hope that it will one day be revived, we meanwhile present in this issue the texts of the University's final three lectures, along with the discussions they generated. First comes a transcript of the address given by Archbishop A. Nossol of Opole, Silesia, who argued in favor of an ecumenical unity of Europe's Christian Churches as a prerequisite for the creation of a supranational community permeated with a "European spirit". In talking to his listeners, the Archbishop shared some of his Silesian experiences, those of a man who had lived at a crossroads of nations, cultures, and faiths. For his part, P. Kłodkowski, a researcher who specializes in the civilization of the Orient, traces the causes underlying the peculiar "globalization of hate" that has been spreading following the September 11 attacks and wonders what it is that makes humans so need an enemy and an explicit, visual effigy of it to execrate and to loathe. Kłodkowski's lecture was followed by a discussion whose main focus was on the distinctiveness of Islamic civilization. The very last gathering of the Flying University was dedicated to the Bible. Anna Świderkówna, the eminent classical philologist and expert on papyrus scrolls and Biblicist rolled into one, sought to answer the question of the veracity of Biblical stories in which the mythical and the fabulous blend into, and get intertwined with the real, the historical. Following her lecture, participants in the discussion mainly asked for help in best interpreting the Bible's most difficult passages.

On our "Diagnoses" pages C. Kęder writes about the recent slump on the market of low-circulation, high-brow cultural magazines. This issue also offers: the second part of K. Michalski's deliberations on temporal issues, eternity, and the passage of time; an essay by A. Grabowski on Adam Mickiewicz and his vision of Europe; another contribution by J. Poniewierski's to the renewed series entitled "The Church - my Home"; along with a set of book reviews and announcements of the most recently published literary works.

POCZĄTEK STRONY