The History of «Marriage encounter» in Croatia

Abstract

The Marriage Encounter movement has two primary goals: firstly to engage the married couple in a process of dialogue and secondly to facilitate the renewal of the Catholic Church. The movement was begun in Croatia thanks to the efforts of the the couple Franko and Nives Jelich from Wichita, Kansas USA. The first Marriage Encounter weekend program was held in the Jesuit house in Opatija, June 11-13, 1976 and was based on the Worldwide Marriage Encounter method. Since that time and up until 1988, Fr. Stjepan Kušan has been responsible for the organisation of Marriage Encounter weekends, and for this we owe him our thanks. Also, the many enthusiastic couples who completed the weekend program deserve to be thanked for the swift pace at which the ME movement has spread. In the first year alone, over eighty couples completed the ME weekend program, and by 2006 approximately 5000 couples, 150 priests (6 bishops) and about 90 women religious had also done so. Croatian couples and priests brought the ME movement to Italy in 1978 and to Slovenia and Serbia in 2003. Croatia has participated in the European Council ME since its beginnings in 1981, and five meetings of this Council have taken place in Croatia until now.
After the Republic of Croatia gained independence in 1991, more favourable conditions were created for a tighter organisation. This task was carried out by the National Team consisting of Fr.Tonči Trstenjak and Spomenka and Darko Novosel. Following its establishment and the ratification of its statutes, it was registered in 1993 as the non-government association called the «Croatian Community of Marriage Encounters». Their bulletin «Prisutnost» (Presence) was first printed in 1993 and its purpose was to report on all significant events and important documents, as well as to print a list of all the names and addresses of couples who went through the experience of Marriage Encounter in Croatia. ME is not considered a family movement, rather it is a movement for the renewal of the Catholic Church through the sacraments, particularly the sacraments of Holy Orders and Matrimony. The community is headed by a National Team (consisting of a married couple and a priest) who are elected for a three-year mandate by the National Council. Until now fourteen National Teams have been appointed. This is one of the largest organised Catholic associations in Croatia with a strong leadership, good organisation, clear goals and detailed working methods. Marriage Encounter weekends are held each month throughout Croatia, and an average of two hundred couples go through the programme each year. Approximately two thousand couples participate actively in the life of the Croatian Community of Marriage Encounters.