Paul Valéry once quipped: “As far as I am concerned, any people who have been influenced throughout history by Greece, Rome and Christianity are Europeans.” In this new series, I’d like to explore this idea of Europe understood as Western Civilization: its origins, development through the ages, movements, synthesis, eras, deaths and rebirths, multiplicities, constant changes expressed via art, science, literature, philosophy, theology, religion, music. That is to say, that rich multi-cultural tapestry we call the West. We will attempt to deconstruct this prophetic statement by Klaus Held: “A European community grounded only in political and economic cooperation of the member states would lack an intrinsic common bond. It would be building upon sand.” What such a common cultural bond might be is glimpsed in this statement by the late John Paul II: “If the religious and Christian substratum of the continent is marginalized in its role as inspiration of ethical and social efficacy, we would be negating not only the past heritage of Europe but a future worthy of European Man—and by that I mean every European Man, be he a believer or a non believer.” Indeed, more than a geographical reality, Europe is an idea and it will live or die as an idea.