Underground Church in Slovakia: of secret meetings and microfilms

(Vatican Radio) What was life like behind the iron curtain in the 1970's and how did the local churches there keep in touch with the free world? Clearly every nation has a different story to tell but the one Austrian born Monsignor Leo Maasburg, currently  National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in Austria, shares with Veronica Scarisbrick focuses on the underground Church in Slovakia. 

Listen to Monsignor Leo Maasburg in an interview with Veronica Scarisbrick:  

Geographically the story relates to two cities, Vienna and Bratislava, so close to each other there was even a tram line connection. Despite this before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the distance was magnified by the presence between the two of minefields, barbed wire fences, watchtowers, guard dogs, border guards. At the time Monsignor Maasburg was still a seminarian and regularly crossed that daunting border.

He went as postman of the Church from the free world delivering to the underground church, an activity shrouded in secrecy. He recalls how frightening it was, in  his words: " the most frightening thing was that when you entered there was this big cloud, a big cloud of permanent control, you felt watched, totally...for us it was a real nightmare... “ And the risk factor was real, on one occasion a member of  his group was caught and imprisoned for a year and a half.

The group he acted as postman for was a small one linked to the message of Fatima and founded by a Bishop who spear headed evangelisation  throughout Eastern Europe at the time of communist repression. And the people he came into contact with on the other side of the barbed wire fence were amazing. Some like Cardinal Jan Chyrzostom Korec SJ, had spent years in concentration camps, others still in solitary confinement. Impressive people who who kept the faith despite the isolation and the dire circumstances of severe persecution..

Monsignor Maasburg describes his encounter with the cardinal, a man intent on eluding government control. It worked this way: the radio on full blast in the bugged office and the use of a special metre long tube to be placed from ear to mouth. A  device to keep conversations private.

In this interview Monsignor Maasburg also touches on the James Bond excitement effect this activity exercised on him as a young seminarian but dwells far more on the anxiety related to border crossings. Once, he remarks, the guards made him undress but fortunataely failed to find the microfilm hidden in his socks.