The International Congress did not just aimed at studying the life and works of Michael Servetus, but also at discussing, within a scientific and multidisciplinary framework his legacy and its implications at the outset of the XXI century. This format allowed reflections and thoughts on what is needed to ensure the pacific coexistence amongst peoples (such as the reciprocity in the recognition of rights, the respect of peoples’ history and their symbols, or the need to enhance the quality of education systems). It also reflected on the present international situation, which threatens breaking the status quo established after World War II.

For the Michael Servetus Institute, the success of this International Congress proves its vitality and its clear international and humanist mission, as well as its commitment to spread and the work and the legacy of Michael Servetus with scientific criteria within the framework of an institution gathering Servetians all around the world.

The Institute, therefore, reaffirms its vocation to continue being the center of reference for Servetian studies in Spain and abroad. In addition, with this Congress, our Institute enters the XXI century aspiring to become in a “think tank”, which, starting with the example of Michael Servetus, allows to generate ideas aiming at influencing the cultural and political tissue of the society in which we live.

The Congress began with the welcoming speech of Mr. Javier Callizo, former head of the Department of the Government of Aragon and currently Vice-Secretary of Territory Policy. Mr. Callizo emphasized the intellectual importance of Servetus in the Spanish culture and the benefits of closing the Servetian Year with an International Congress gathering the main specialist on Servetus’ works and legacy. After the intervention of Mr. Callizo and Mr. Sergio Baches Opi, Director and Secretary of the Institute respectively thanked the audience for attending the opening session of the Congress and emphasized the effort that the Institute made to organize this Congress.

After these interventions, Dr. Angel Alcalá, honorary member of the Institute and Emeritus professor of the New York City University, gave a lecture entitled “Our debt with Servetus: Inspirations of his thought for the XXI century”, in which he presented to us Michael Servetus as the father of freedom of conscience: “It is urgent, very urgent, not only to restitute to Servetus his greatest contribution that has been denied to him by fanaticisms and still it is denied to him by some historians: that of being the father of the right to freedom of conscience, and specially to scatter his idea of freedom so that it spreads all over the world.” Alcalá argued that so that the dream of responsible freedom, justice and peace amongst human beings that inspires the life of Servetus is a reality and not a sheer utopia. According to Alcalá it is indispensable that we dedicate our efforts to a series of "tasks":

1st. Respect to others, respect the ideas and religion of others. According to Alcalá, “in Spain, the Church and the State have surpassed the stage of extermination of the adversary, but neither at the religious nor at the political levels have we arrived to an stage of respect and mutual coexistence that only the unique conviction of total reciprocal freedom “within an order”, as Servetus wrote in one of its thirty letters to Calvin, can guarantee”. “It is urgent and necessary to surpass the animosity of the religions and the political slander between the different social factions, but not only to reach that level of clear religious ecumenism that is more evident in other Christian confessions than in the Catholic Church, but also to respect the right to disagree, a right that is only observed in democracies with old and deep roots, such as that of the USA.”

2nd. Education, the only pacific and lasting solution to save to the world: In this point, Prof. Alcalá recalled that Servetus was without a doubt a reader of all kinds of books, as his numerous references to the first Fathers of the Church and other authors show. He was also a radical researcher. Drawing thoughts from the demanding example of study and scholarship that was Servetus, Prof. Alcalá wanted to express his uneasiness towards the “excessively regionalistic and, therefore, myopic education that is sponsored by some regions in Spain, supporting programs that reduce the scope of geographic studies and history, imposing languages which are not those of the students or those of their parents, creating artificially educative ghettos which limit them and do not prepare them for the life.”

According to Alcalá, education is in fact the only pacific solution to save the world. We must be conscious of the vital importance that an education of maximum level and quality has for humanity. “Servetus believed, like Erasmus and the great humanists of the Renaissance, that it is possible to save humanity and to make it progress, but only by means of education, by the spread of culture.” According to Alcalá, “contrary to that which many think and say now from the highest instances of power, to demand excellence is not elitism”. In this regards, Alcalá indicated that it is not sufficient to educate young people to develop professionally in an increasingly competitive world, but that this sheer technical education must be extended to a ‘typical Servetian’ education, i.e. to an education that teaches the responsible exercise of freedom.”

3rd. Freedom of conscience, the foundation of all the liberties demands us to respect the opinions of others and to reject violence as solution of all problems, either personal or internationals. “According to Servetus, nobody has the right to limit the intellectual, moral or religious conscience of anybody, just as nobody, either individuals or institutions, is the supreme arbiter of the truth [...] the truth does not prevail with the sword, nor with excommunication: it gets through by itself, with its own light, supported in the word. Servetus wrote: “God knows that I have written everything with a clean conscience. Such is the fragility of the human condition that we condemn the spirit of others as impostors and impious except our own, for no one recognizes his own errors. (...) but if ever I said anything it is because I consider it a serious matter to kill men because they are in error on some question of scriptural interpretation.” For Alcalá, nobody but Servetus until that time had defended the right to freedom of conscience with such much clarity and emphasis. Therefore, we must continue praising Servetus as a doctor and immense theologian, “but the great legacy of Servetus for today and for always is this one: any individual is free by nature and must be respected and respect others in the rational development of their freedom; thus, all problems can and must be solved without violence, because violence is the negation of the freedom.”

In the international relations scenario, Prof. Alcalá talked about the necessity to educate to the masses in the concept of freedom: “the final battle against terrorism will be won, not with mere dialogues of cultures, but indeed with the slow education of the masses into democracy and freedom, and before, with the immediate setting aside of States and political and religious groups that sponsor the ethnic terrorism.” Nevertheless, the necessity of education, pedagogical and worldwide massive propaganda on democracy and freedom, must respect a basic principle: we must demand for ourselves the same respect from those that do not respect us. For Alcalá, “it is necessary to proclaim the law of the reciprocity, not the law of tooth for tooth, but the law that proclaims reciprocity of rights. Today there is only one culture and one religion that burns Christian churches, and one religion that where it has majority does not allow its Christian minority to build churches, whereas in the West we allow to erection of whichever mosques they want. This is very democratic but it is not fair. Reciprocity of rights is essential to the concept of democracy.”

Dr. Alcalá concluded his conference by emphasizing that Servetus was ahead of his time because he clearly defended the separation between religion and State, something that would only become reality much later and after long fights. It is therefore urgent to claim for Servetus the title of father of the freedom of conscience. The Spaniards, and much less the Aragoneses, must not allow anyone to take Servetus away from them.

After this first lecture by Dr. Alcala, Dr. Lluís Duch, monk at the Montserrat Abbey and Professor of the Autonomous University of Barcelona, gave a brilliant lecture on the ins and outs of the Reformation: “Reformation and Countereformation: a history of a misunderstanding in the Servetian universe”. According to Dr. Duch, “Michael Servetus finds himself in the middle of an embroiled universe, in which the old world taken for granted, using an expression of Alfred Schütz, has crumbled and, with doubts, reactions of all type and experiments, a new journey begins that will culminate in which by convenience we are used to designating with the somewhat vague term of Modernity.” The protestant reforms (in plural) are explained, according to Dr. Duch, by various causes that he explained in detail and that we will just summarized as follows: the erruption of the humanist subjectivism willing to discover the human being as the center of all things; the increasing criticisms towards ecclesiastical corruption; the political situation in Germany that transformed the Reformation into a religious instrument to obtain political objectives; the extremely miserable situation of the clergy, the invention of the press, the increasing relevance of the bourgeoisie, etc.

Regardless of the causes, the protestant reforms prevailed in Central Europe and in spite of the differences between the different reformation movements it is possible to identify two elements that constitute their common denominator: (i) an extremely pessimistic anthropology that sees human beings as corrupted entities of impossible salvation and (ii) the anxiety of independence from the power of Rome. The protestant reforms generated what has been called “left wing of the reform”. Within this trend it is possible to allocate different reformation groups: Anabaptists, Antitrinitarians, Hutterites, movement of Munster, etc. “In the same way as the classical reforms appear as peripheries of the Roman Church, the numerous groups that, for convenience, we grouped under the name of “radical Reforms” or “left wing of the Reformation” constitute, both from a theological and political perspective, the peripheries of the new Churches, the reforms of the Reforms”. The reformation postulates of Michael Servetus should be classified within this spectrum.

As opposed to the Reformation, the Roman curia and its closest powers reacted (but late) in what has essentially been called the Counterreformation. The most relevant event of the Counterreformation was the summoning of the Council of Trent (1545-1563), which supposed the assertion of the centralism and the uniformity of the Roman Church, as well as to advocate a deeply anti-protestant position. Likewise, the protestant territories were also deeply anti-catholic: “Considering the peculiarities of the time, this situation of extreme aggressiveness leads inevitably to the confrontation not only in the field of the theological ideas, but also in the battlefields (“religious wars”). The so-called “war of the thirty years” (1618-1648) is the maximum hint of that cruel European civil war, causing the death of half of the population in many territories of Central Europe.” As a conclusion, Dr. Duch emphasized, on the one hand, that the XVI century constitutes the departing point of the constitution of Europe as a world-wide cultural reference until the end of World War I (1918) and, on the other hand, that the events of the XVI century, although at an eminently anthropological level, continue to have some repercussions in the thoughts and present attitudes of the inhabitants of Old Europe.

Finally, in this first day, Prof. Gustavo Palomares Lerma (Chair "Jean Monnet" and professor of International Relations in the UNED – Long Distance Education University of Spain) presented with unusual clarity his vision on the current situation of international politics and tried to answer the question that was formulated to him in the title of his lecture: Is coexistence amongst peoples possible? Prof. Palomares initiated his intervention distinguishing between before and after September 11th, 2001. Before that date, the international political system had given certain proofs of sensibleness and the possibility of stabilizing or neutralizing long-standing international conflicts were seen with optimism. As a result of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, the international policy of the Bush Administration leaves the more or less multilateral approach of the Clinton Administration and decidedly embraces unilateralism in US foreign policy. This new approach finds its most clear expression in the formulation of the “preventive war” doctrine that served later as justification to the invasion of Afghanistan and of Iraq.

In this context, Dr. Palomares emphasized the importance that the European Union affirms itself as a worldwide power to counterbalance US unilateralism. It is therefore essential that the European Union reinforces its Common Foreign and Security Policy (the “second pillar” of the European Union) and that it approves a Constitution like the one that Member States will ratify in the coming months. According to Prof. Palomares, the coexistence between peoples is still possible if we all accept the international legality and as long as the bases are settled to restore a lasting peace in the Middle East. In this regard, the peace and stability of the planet demands, according to Dr. Palomares, the urgent resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The next day the Congress was resumed in the Servetus’ birth town (Villanueva de Sijena), where the Native House of "Michael Servetus" was transformed into an incomparable workshop to discuss different subjects related to the "Servetian quest". The mayor of Villanueva de Sijena and First Vice-president of the Institute, Mr. Ildefonso Salillas and the County President of Los Monegros, Mr. Manuel Conte, were in charge of welcoming the attendants and gave thanks for the support of the public institutions that have collaborated with the Institute in this event. The Secretary General of the Institute intervened afterwards to emphasize that this International Congress also pays homage to the founder of the Institute Mr. Julio Arribas (this year 2004 being the 20th anniversary of his death). The Secretary General emphasized that without the visionary character of Mr. Julio Arribas none of us would be here today for honoring the memory of Michael Sevetus and studying his legacy..

After this brief but touching welcome, Dr. Marian Hillar, Director of the Center for Socinian Studies, Prof. at Southern Texas University (Houston – USA) and distinguished member of our Institute (2003) gave a lecture on the following topic: “Christianismi Restitutio: the religious program of Michael Servetus”, in which he analyzed thoroughly the content of the master work of Servetus. After pointing out that Servetus embraced empirical epistemology to analyze the traditional conception of the dogma of the Trinity (i.e. he followed a biblical research and not just a philosophical approach), Dr. Hillar pointed out the main aspects of the Servetian theology: the dogma of the Trinity, doctrine of faith and justification, the Evangelical Ministries, etc.

According to Dr. Hillar, for Servetus, “the Trinity becomes a true manifestation of the essence of God, first in the Word understood literally in the Hebrew sense as the manifestation of God and in the Hellenic sense as the essence of God, and later in the human Jesus, the natural son of God, and finally of the resurrection of Jesus in the Spirit which is the way in which God communicates with Humanity.” As far as the doctrine of the faith and the justification, Servetus follows the approach of Saint Paul: “the foundation of the Christian religion lies in faith, that is to say, the belief, the confidence and the consensus that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God that proclaimed the coming kingdom and the salvation of all those who believed in him.”

Servetus places great importance on the spiritual inspiration of the believer and on his freedom. Faith is a voluntary and spontaneous act (this approach would be adopted later in history by Unitarians), but it is also a rational act. For Servetus, faith entails penance, rejection of sin and must be accompanied by charity and works. In the justification, Servetus also follows Saint Paul, when he contends that once we believe in Christ we are justified before God, but this does not guarantee salvation, as salvation requires justification by works. Justice given by faith introduces to us in the Kingdom of Christ, which is not for Servetus the future Kingdom promised after death, but the one that exists spiritually within us.

Finally, with regard to the Evangelical Ministries, Servetus endorses the universal priesthood (any believer with wisdom and inspiration of the Holy Spirit can become an apostle or spiritual minister) and rejects infants’ baptism since they are not able to commit mortal sin and, consequently, do not need to be regenerated by baptism. For Servetus, Eucharist is the form that Christians have to feed themselves spiritually. Dr. Hillar pointed out that “Servetus interprets the bread of the supper as the true body of Christ. Christ enters in communion with us in this bread substantially. Thus also by means of Eucharist we enter in communion with the Christians cutting the bread.”

AThe conference of Dr. Hillar was followed by the lecture of Rev. Dr. Donald W. McKninney, Emeritus Minister of the First Unitarian Church of Brooklyn (New York), and distinguished member of the Michael Servetus Institute, who pronounced a conference on “The religious legacy of Servetus: principles and present reality of the Unitarian religion”. Rev. Mckinney began his lecture reminding the audience that in 1977 he took a sabbatical to travel to Europe and travel around visiting the places related to Servetus’ life. This existential and spiritual journey took him to Villanueva de Sijena where hosted by Mr. Julio Arribas Salaberri (the founder of the Michael Servetus Institute) he visited the house where Michael Servetus was born.

During his pilgrimage, Dr. McKinney reached a two-pronged conclusion: on the one hand, that Servetus’ religious legacy was a vital and central element to understand Unitarianism today, and on the other hand, that Servetus’ ‘Spanishness’ was essential to understanding his theological doctrines. For McKinney, Unitarianism was born, in a very real sense, the day that Servetus died at the stake. Why? Precisely because Unitarianism, as one of its first historians, Earl Morse Wilbur, pointed out, “has always been characterized by three basic principles which continue to this day: first: freedom of belief in religion rather than adherence to specific creeds of statements of faith; second: reliance on reason rather than authority or tradition, and third: tolerance of differing religious views and practice.”

Along with the foregoing lectures, whose full content will be published in the coming months by the Institute, the Congress had two outstanding moments. The release of a new documentary on the life and works of Michael Servetus: “The life of Michael Servetus: God, the Reformer and the Heretic”, produced and directed by the German director Oliver Eckert, who caused a great impact on the audience, and, the proclamation of the “Servetian Manifesto of Sixena”.

In the presentation of documentary, Mr. Eckert pointed out that he began to be interested in Servetus while he studied in Geneva, and that his encounter with the character was accidental, since he ran into the figure of Servetus “by a vague review in an encyclopedia, about something he thought to be absurd: Calvin condemning Servetus to die at the stake”. In spite of the interesting creative potential of the Servetian drama and the overturning period of the Reformation, there are only a few movies and documentaries dedicated to Servetus. For that reason, the Institute considers the production of a documentary in which the experiences of the Spanish humanist are reflected with scientific rigor a remarkable achievement, something which has not always been the case in the audiovisual field. The Michael Servetus Institute was delighted to provide assistance to the director of the documentary in the preparation of the script.

The documentary tells, through "road-movie" style and within the scenery of the XXI century, the vital and intellectual journey of Michael Servetus through the main scenarios of the Reformation. It reconstructs the vital episodes of the Aragonese humanist’s life by using theological dialogues with his opponents. The current images of Vienne (France), Bologna, Paris, Strasbourg, Basel and Geneva serve as the framework of the controversies of Aeocaolampadious, Capitus, Griffon, Luther and Calvin amongst themselves and against Servetus. Servetus is progressively left alone in the defense of a clear Christianity, while at the same he is forced to change his name, to lie about his origin (i.e. he said he was from Tudela-Navarra) and to flee continuously from his catholic and protestant chasers, circumstantially united against the theological crime of this dissident.

Once the lectures were over, the “Servetian Manifesto of Sixena" was proclaimed again in Villanueva de Sijena (the first proclamation had taken place in Zaragoza the night before) This was one of the most intimate and exciting moments during the Congress: the conference room of the Institute was packed by the attendants who stood up and read together the Servetian Manifesto.

This Manifesto is a compendium of those principles that made up the Servetian line of though. It is a true declaration of rights that affirms the "dignity of difference" as opposed to “tribalism”, whose more evident manifestation of tribalism is the futile protectionist nationalisms that we are confronting in Spain and abroad. The “dignity of difference” also opposes to the “homogenizing universalism”, whose most current manifestation is the phenomenon of “globalization”. The Manifesto has been translated into English and French so that it has the widest possible spread.