July 8, 2013
The presidential flag fluttering above the palace overloking the historic town centre of Prague proudly carries the Czech national motto ‘Pravda Vítézí’: truth prevails. Vaclav Havel, the playwright-dissident who became president of the newly democratic Czechoslovakia in 1989, made this phrase his own by declaring that ‘truth and love must prevail over lies and hatred’. […]
July 1, 2013
Tourism has been around much longer than the stereotypical ‘loud, cigar-puffing American’ of the popular imagination. The ‘Grand Tour’ of the 18th century, for example, was an essential rounding off of the education for élite young Europeans. Thomas Cook, a name still prominent in tourism today, laid claim to being founder of organised group tours […]
June 24, 2013
Did you catch the story last week about the man who cut through the iron curtain between Hungary and Austria? Gyula Horn, former Hungarian prime minister, died last wednesday, aged 80. Twenty-four years ago this week, on June 27, 1989, Horn, then foreign minister, and his Austrian counterpart staged a photo-opportunity to create what Horn […]
June 17, 2013
Fathers Day was celebrated in many European countries yesterday, the third Sunday in June. For various historical reasons, most of Switzerland marked this day two weeks ago, Austria and Belgium last weekend and most Nordic countries will wait until November. Down under in Australia and New Zealand, fathers will be honoured in September. But most […]
June 10, 2013
The most dangerous man in Tudor England, BBC2 viewers learned last Thursday evening, was the scholar who first penned in English such Biblical phrases as: ‘let there be light’, ‘filthy lucre’, ‘signs of the times’, ‘the meek shall inherit the earth’, ‘sour grapes’, ‘rise and shine’ and many more. Melvyn Bragg’s insightful documentary on William […]
June 3, 2013
Human dignity and rights needed to be set free from religious foundations; only a secular basis could maintain their continued existence free from religious violence and tensions. At least, that was the learned opinion one of Holland’s best-known atheists expressed in a seminar last week in The Hague. Dr Margriet Krijtenburg, who spoke in Dublin […]
May 27, 2013
After his 89th minute goal in at Wembley last Saturday, finally winning the Champions League final for Bayern Munchen, Arjen Robben declared he was going to get drunk that night, and probably for the next couple of days too. Such a statement, declares Czech economist Tomas Sedlacek, debunks the myth of human rationality on which […]
May 20, 2013
When Judah was taken into exile to Babylon, God’s instructions to the Jews through Jeremiah was to seek the city’s shalom, or well-being and harmony. What then might God’s word to us be today as ‘exiles’ in what many see as a post-Christian, secularised Europe? Surely also to seek Europe’s shalom. Okay, but what does […]
May 13, 2013
Live blog from Dublin by VOX magazine’s editor Ruth Garvey-Williams, Friday 10 May: Delegates from 20 countries across Europe have gathered at Croke Park Conference centre in Dublin today for the annual ‘State of Europe Forum’. Inspired by Robert Schuman’s vision for a ‘community of peoples deeply rooted in Christian values’, the forum explores economic, […]
May 9, 2013
Most Europeans have no clue, and couldn’t care less, that this Thursday, May 9, is so-called ‘Europe day’. And certainly under current circumstances, there’s not much to celebrate, Right? May I suggest, however, that there is an intrinsic relationship between Europe Day and Ascension Day, which happen to fall on the same day this year. […]
April 29, 2013
George Frideric Handel was only 28 years old when he was commissioned by the British royal family to compose a special sacred work to be performed in St Paul’s Cathedral in thanksgiving for the end of the first world war in 1713. No, that is not a typo. For the world’s first global war took […]
April 22, 2013
While Margaret Thatcher’s state funeral last Wednesday was the occasion for VIP’s and angry protestors to praise or blame her for the shape of modern Britain, the President of Ireland was delivering a passionate speech in the European Parliament which prompted a standing ovation. The simultaneous events both carried warnings about the transience of power, […]
