In 26 May 1996, from one
end of France to the other, all across the land the bells tolled. It was
a rather somber note for the glorious feast of Pentecost. Thousands
stood in silence around the Eiffel Tower. It was a moment of
remembrance, of pain, of joy, of awe. And yet in some ways it was
strange that this should be taking place. Since the early days of 1992,
after an unpopular government canceled an election it was slated to
lose, blood had flowed freely in Algeria. It was estimated that as many
as fifty thousand had died in the guerrilla warfare, including at least
a hundred citizens of other nations, some forty of them from France
alone. Eleven priests and religious had been among those slain. But now,
with the kidnapping and subsequent horrifying slaughter of seven
Trappist monks of Our Lady of Atlas, suddenly France and the world
stopped to take note. Why? Because this was not just another moment in
ongoing bloody events. It was a moment of exquisite love: "Greater love
than this no one has, than that one lay down one's life for one's
friends." These seven were, as the Trappist abbot general expressed it,
"martyrs of love." Consciously, deliberately, these men remained among a
chosen people to give an unfaltering witness of love, knowing full well
what would be the probable outcome of their witness.
Who Were
These Seven?
The seven monks of Our
Lady of Atlas who gave their lives in a witness of love were, in fact,
quite typical of today's Cistercians. They came from varied backgrounds,
mostly the middle class, from different parts of France. Most of them
began their monastic journey a bit later in life, after having served
God's people in other ways. They entered three different French
monasteries, but each in some way heard the call to go live a witness of
love among the Muslims. In response to that call, they came together at
Our Lady of Atlas Monastery, Tibhirine, and formed a "school of
charity",under the tutelage of Father Christian de Cherg, the prior. All
who knew the small community noted how closely these men were bonded in
a true friendship. We are not surprised, then, when we learn that, as a
student at the Carmelite seminary of Paris, Father Christian wrote his
thesis on Christian friendship, a friendship that stands out by reason
of its delicacy and its spiritual depth.
Father Christian, like
others of the seven, first came to know Algeria and its people during
his military service. For twenty-seven months he was stationed there
with significant administrative responsibilities in service of the local
population. He returned later as a monk to be another kind of presence,
to give another kind of witness. After his ordination as priest, Father
Christian had served for a time as chaplain at the great Basilica of the
Sacred Heart on Montmartre, but his own heart sought something more.
This he pursued at the ancient Cistercian Abbey of Aiguebelle in the
foothills of the Alps in southeastern France and then, after some
preparation with the White Fathers at Rome, with his Trappist brothers
at Tibhirine. Christian was fifty-nine when he found the fullness of
love he had always sought and laid down his life for his friends.
Brother Luc Dochier, at
eighty-two, was the senior of the community. He was a medical doctor and
brought this valuable skill not only to the community but also to people
all around. The monastery's dispensary, which was tied in with the
health department of the region, was the best for a hundred kilometers
around. For all his learning--and he remained ever an avid reader ready
to share with the brothers what he read--he was at heart a very simple
man. The love of God was central, and love of neighbor consumed his
working hours as he ministered to all who came.
Father Celestin
Ringeard, twenty years Luc's junior, was Brother's right-hand man. He
was a man of energy and color. As a priest of the diocese of Nantes, his
ministry had been in the streets; his flock, the alcoholics, the
prostitutes, the gays. Like Father Christian, he had seen service in
Algeria. In the medical corps he cared for the "enemy" as well as his
own. With Brother Luc he cared for them again.
Father Celestin had
entered the Abbey of Our Lady of Bellefontaine, in Maine-et-Loire, not
far south of Paris. Bellefontaine is the motherhouse of Spencer. It was
from there that in March 1984 he set out for Algeria with two others,
Brother Michel Fleury and Father Bruno Lemarchand.
Brother Michel was from
a peasant family in Loire-Atlantique. He first heard the call to serve
Christ in the poorest of the poor. He joined the Freres du Prado, who
saw their life as living a "modern Trappist life in the midst of the
poor." But soon enough Brother felt drawn to the fullness of the
traditional Trappist life. When he joined the brothers at Our Lady of
Atlas, he was given the task of community cook. Michel was a simple man,
a gentle man, yet very discrete. Curiously, when the abductors took the
monks off, Brother managed to carry with him his monastic cowl and leave
it along the route, giving the pursuers the sole indication of the
direction in which the monks had been taken.
Father Bruno, in a
sense, no longer belonged to the community of Our Lady of Atlas. In 1990
he had been sent with three others to start a new little community of
witness in Morocco near Fez. He had returned to Atlas a few days before
the incursion of the guerrillas in order to take part in the election of
a prior. He had brought with him to monastic life a rich background. He
had been a professor and then the head of the College of St. Charles of
Thouars. His first experience of Algeria had come early in life when his
father was assigned there as an army officer.
Two of the martyrs came
from the ancient Cistercian monastery hidden high in the French Alps,
Notre Dame de Tamie. Born in the region, Brother Paul Favre-Miville was
the son of a Savoyard blacksmith. It took him a long time to find his
way to the monastery, but he came with skills that enabled him, when he
got to Our Lady of Atlas, to set up a good irrigation system that served
monk and neighbor alike in the cooperative gardens.
His confrere from Tamie,
Father Christophe Lebreton, at forty-five, was the youngest of the
community. Coming from a family of twelve children--he was the
seventh--he seemed to come naturally to monastic life. He was of a
poetic nature, very much the lover, who expressed himself well in words,
both in his journal and in poems.
A mixed group, indeed,
like that found in any Cistercian monastery, drawn together by a vision,
a transcendent vision centered on a particular, in this case, being a
presence of Christ among a people that does not yet understand who this
incarnate God of love is.
The
Background Story
The story actually
begins over sixty years ago when the monks of Aiguebelle conceived the
idea of implanting among the Muslims of Algeria a small community of
monks who could be the praying heart of the Christian community in that
country and also witness to Christ's love by their own lives of love.
They found a site about forty-five miles south of the nation's capital,
Algiers, near the city of Medea (Lemdiyya) at a place called Tibhirine.
Although the community was fully committed to the traditional Cistercian
contemplative life, along with many other third-world communities it
extended monastic hospitality to providing some medical care for those
who came to the monastery door. And, continuing the earliest Cistercian
tradition, the brothers who worked the farm and gardens shared their
expertise with their less fortunate neighbors, enhancing the human
condition of these very poor people.
As there was no
possibility of local vocations, recruits had to be constantly sought in
the form of volunteers from the Trappist monasteries of France. Thus the
community enjoyed the enriching presence of monks from a number of
abbeys. In general, life was quite peaceful in the little monastery,
though disturbed at times by the recurring wars.
The latest period of
disturbance began in December 1991, when the government suddenly
canceled elections in which it seemed the fundamentalist Islamic party,
the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), would win control. The FIS formed a
guerrilla force and was promptly outlawed. An even more radical group
then formed in the mountains, the Armed Islamic Group (GIA). It was this
group that warned all foreigners to leave the country, and it began to
indulge in periodic acts of terrorism.
As the community of
Atlas gathered to discuss what they should do in the face of this new
warning and threat, they realized they were not the first Cistercian
community to face such a challenge. This was the case with the
communities of Huambo and Bela Vista in Angola, Butende in Uganda, and
Marija Zvijezda in Bosnia. For the monks of Atlas, the question became
more acute when an armed band of the GIA, the "brothers from the
mountain" as Father Christian called them, visited the monastery on
Christmas eve in 1993. The guerrillas wanted to oblige the monks to
collaborate with them through medical aid, economic support, and
logistical help. In response the prefect of Medea offered the monks
armed protection and the possibility of moving from the monastery to a
protected area. Through community discussions and votes during the
following days, the monks decided to remain at Atlas, to decline armed
protection so as to remain a sign of peace, and to reject any form of
collaboration with the armed group except medical aid given only in the
monastery dispensary.
Father Christian sought
to express the monks' position in a letter to the chief of the GIA,
Sayah Attiya:
"Brother,
allow me to address you like this, as man to man, believer to
believer.... In the present conflict in which our country is living, it
seems to us impossible to take sides. The fact that we are foreigners
forbids it. Our state as monks (ruhbfn) binds us to God's choice for us,
which is prayer and the simple life, manual work, hospitality, and
sharing with everyone, especially with the poor. ... These reasons for
our life are a free choice for each one of us. They bind us until death.
I do not think that it is God's will that this death should come to us
through you. ... If one day the Algerians judge that we are unwelcome,
we will respect their desire to see us leave. With very great regret I
know that we will continue to love them all, as a whole, and that
includes you.
When and
how will this message reach you? It does not matter! I needed to write
it to you today. Forgive me for having written in my mother tongue. You
understand me. And may the only One of all life lead us! Amin."
As the danger increased,
in June 1994 the apostolic nuncio invited the monks to come and live at
the nunciature. The brothers did not judge the time had come yet to
abandon their monastery. When, on 23 October 1994, two Spanish
Augustinian nuns were murdered at the entrance of the parish church,
Father Christian wrote to the abbot general:
"The
communities of men seem to be standing by their option to remain. This
is clear so far for the Jesuits, the Little Brothers of Jesus, all the
Wrhite Fathers. It is also clear for us. At Tibhirine as elsewhere this
option has its risks. That is obvious. Each one has told me that he
wants to take them, in a journey of faith into the future and in sharing
the present with neighbors who have always been very close friends of
ours. The grace of this gift is given to us from day to day, very
simply. At the end of September we had another nocturnal "visit." This
time the "brothers of the mountain" wanted to use our telephone. We
pretended to listen in, then emphasized the contradiction between our
way of life and any kind of complicity with what could harm the life of
another. They gave us assurances, but the threat was there, supported by
arms. (13 November 1994)"
On 16 December, after
more careful and prayerful discussion, the brothers again took a vote to
confirm their decisions. At this time the archbishop of Algiers, Henri
Teissier, thanked them for taking the risk of prolonging their presence
and their witness, telling them how significant was their presence of
prayer and daily work in Tibhirine for the whole Christian community of
Algeria. He thanked them for their tidelity and courage.
The Testament of
Father Christian
It was during the
previous Advent of 1993 that Father Christian had composed his
"Testament," to be opened only after his death. This was done on 23 May
1996 when his and his brothers' passing was announced. There is no doubt
but that this testament will be cherished as one of the great spiritual
classics of the 20th century-though surely that is not what this humble
and transparent monk would ever have intended. Let us share it with you
in full:
"When an A-DIEU
is envisaged ...
If it should happen one day--and it could be today--that I become a
victim of the terrorism which now seems to encompass all the foreigners
living in Algeria, I would like my community, my church, my family,
to
remember that my life was given to God and to this country;
to
accept that the One Master of all life was not a stranger to this brutal
departure;
to
pray for me--for how should I be found worthy of such an offering!
to
be able to associate this death with so many other equally violent ones
that have been allowed to fall into the indifference of anonymity.
My life has
no more value than any other. Nor any less value. In any case, it has
not the innocence of childhood. I have lived long enough to know that I
am an accomplice in the evil which seems, alas, to prevail in the world,
and even in that evil which would strike me blindly. I should like, when
the time comes, to have enough lucidity to beg forgiveness of God and of
my brothers and sisters in the human family, and at the same time to
forgive with all my heart the one who would strike me down. I could not
desire such a death. It seems to me important to state this. I don't
see, in fact, how I could rejoice if the people I love were
indiscriminately accused of my murder.
It would be
too high a price to pay for what will be called, perhaps, the "grace of
martyrdom" to owe this to an Algerian, whoever he may be, especially if
he says he is acting in fidelity to what he believes to be Islam. I know
the contempt in which the Algerians as a whole can be held. I know, too,
the caricatures of Islam which encourage a certain Islamism. It is too
easy to give oneself a good conscience in identifying this religious way
with the fundamentalist ideology of its extremists. For me, Algeria and
Islam are something different: they are body and soul. I have proclaimed
it enough, I think, seeing and knowing what I have received from them,
finding here so often that direct line bringing the gospel that I
learned at my mother's knee, my very first church, finding it precisely
in Algeria, and already in the reverence of believing Muslims.
My death,
obviously, will appear to justify those who hastily judged me naive or
idealistic: "Let him tell us now what he thinks of them!" But these must
know that at last my most insistent curiosity will be satisfted. For
this is what I shall be able to do, if God wills: immerse my gaze in
that of the Father to contemplate with him his children of Islam as he
sees them, all shining with the glory of Christ, fruit of his Passion,
filled with the gift of the Spirit, whose secret joy will always be to
establish communion and to refashion the likeness in playing with the
differences. For this life lost, totally mine and totally theirs, I
thank God, who seems to have wished it entirely for the sake of that joy
in and in spite of everything. In this thank-you where, once and for
all, all is said about my life, I certainly include you, friends of
yesterday and today, and you, O my friends of this place, at the side of
my mother and my father, of my sisters and my brothers and their
families--the hundredfold given as he had promised!
And you,
too, my last-minute friend, who would not have known what you were
doing; yes, for you too I say this thank-you and this a-diar--to commend
you to the God in whose face I see yours. And may he grant to us to find
each other, happy thieves, in Paradise, if it please God, the Father of
us both. Amen! Inshallah!"
Algiers,
1 December 1993
Tobhirine, 1 January 1994
Christian
Has ever an executioner
been addressed so lovingly: "my last minute friend ... I see your face
in the face of God ... may we find each other in Paradise"? The "Father,
forgive them for they know not what they do" of the Master is echoed
with a fullness rarely heard in the long annals of discipleship. Greater
love than this no one has.
The Time
Approaches
Two more nuns were shot
in Algeria on 3 September 1995. Ten missionaries had now been slain.
After the funeral Father Christian wrote a letter to the abbot general
in Rome:
"The celebration had a
beautiful atmosphere of serenity and offering. It brought together a
very small church, whose remaining members are perfectly conscious that
the logic of their presence must include henceforth the possibility of a
violent death. It is for many a new and radical plunge, as it were, into
the very charism of their congregation ... and also a return to the
source of the first call. For all that, all of us clearly desire that
none of these Algerians, to whom our consecration binds us in the name
of the love which God has for them, ever wound this love by killing any
of us, any of our brethren.
Lord, disarm me and
disarm them."
A few months later
Father Christopher wrote these prophetic lines at the end of a poem:
"Finally,
my friends, let's get it straight: I belong to him and follow his steps
to the fullest truth of my Easter."
On the night of 26-27
March 1996, Mohammed, the layman who helped the monks, was roused from
his sleep--he lived with his family in a cottage at the gate of the
monastery--by the "brothers of the mountain." They said they came for
Brother Luc, the doctor, to take him to care for some of their men who
were wounded. They crashed through into the monastery. When they
demanded that Brother Luc come with them, Father Christian refused to
allow it in view of Brother's age and serious asthmatic condition. With
this the armed band rounded up all the monks they could find.
Fortunately two were sleeping in another building and escaped capture,
as did the priests and sisters in the guesthouse.
The seven monks were
carried off into the night and nothing further was heard of them until a
London Arabic newspaper, Al Hayat, published extracts from a
communication of the GIA dated 18 April. It said that the emir did not
recognize the aman, the protection that his predecessor accorded the
monks; that it was illicit because the monks "have not ceased to invite
Muslims to be evangelized, to display their slogans and symbols, and to
commemorate their feasts with solemnity." He went on, "Monks who live
among the working classes can be legitimately killed.... They live with
people and draw them away from the divine path, urging them to be
evangelized. It is also licit to apply to them what applies to lifelong
unbelievers when they are prisoners of war: murder, slavery, or exchange
for Muslim prisoners."
Only later did the
French government acknowledge that on 20 April the GIA had made a tape
on which they required the seven monks to speak as proof that they were
still alive. This tape was delivered to the government a week later.
There were rumors of secret negotiations. But the monks would not have
wanted to win their freedom at the cost of the lives of others, which
would certainly have been the case if the captured GIA terrorists were
released to wreak more violence.
The
Martyrdom
Although there had been
some ambiguous statements from the French government in this regard,
President Chirac stated formally on 20 May that there would be no
negotiations with the terrorists regarding an "exchange of prisoners."
This seems to have settled the matter. On 23 May, Radio Medi I in
Tangiers read extracts from a GIA communique announcing that the seven
monks had been beheaded on 21 May. Some doubt as to the veracity of this
report lingered. But the French government, now admitting it had
received the earlier secret communication from the GIA, confirmed the
authenticity of the radio report.
On Thursday evening, 23
May, in a powerfully symbolic act watched by millions on television,
Cardinal Lustiger of Paris extinguished the seven candles which, in the
presence of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish leaders, he had lit seven
weeks earlier as a prayer and a hope for the release of the seven monks.
Muslim-Christian Relations
The seven monks of Our
Lady of Atlas had dedicated their monastic lives to furthering the
growth of healthy and life-giving relations between Muslims and
Christians, who shared faith in and worship of the God of our common
father, Abraham. At first impulse one might say this sacrilegious
butchery had decimated their life's mission. But in fact, according to
the paradoxical logic of an ail-loving God, it gave it a whole new
impetus.
Rabah Kebir, the leader
of the Islamic Salvation Front, who had earlier demanded of the GIA the
release of the seven monks, now spoke out most forcefully: "I strongly
condemn this criminal act, which runs absolutely contrary to the
principles of Islam." Kahdidja Khalil of the High Council of French
Muslims went further: "We strongly condemn this savage and barbaric act.
It is forbidden in the holy Koran to touch 'all servants of God,' and
that means priests and rabbis as well." The High Council had issued a
fatwa, a solemn religious decree, declaring the monks' abduction illegal
and calling for a day of fasting to pray for their release.
In his address on
Pentecost to the faithful in the piazza of St. Peter's, Pope John Paul
II said: "Despite our deep sorrow, we thank God for the witness of love
given by these religious. Their fidelity and constancy give honor to the
church and surely will be seeds of reconciliation and peace for the
Algerian people, with whom they were in solidarity."
Also on Pentecost
Sunday, in a symbolically powerful gesture once again, Cardinal Lustiger
relit the seven candles before the high altar of Notre Dame Cathedral as
a sign of reconciliation, declaring that the monks had not died in vain,
but rather "for life, for love, and for reconciliation."
The
Funeral
'The fullest
confirmation of the sacrifice of the seven Trappist brothers came on 30
May, only a few hours before the abbot general's arrival in Algeria for
the celebration in honor of the martyrs. That morning the mutilated
remains of the seven monks were found in a heap beside the road not far
from Medea. They had evidently been interred for a time at some other
location. The remains were placed in very simple wooden coffins and
taken to the military hospital in Algiers. There the abbot general had
the sorrowful task of identifying the remains.
On the same day as the
remains were found, Cardinal Leon Etienne Duval, the father of the
church in Algeria and a great friend and supporter of the monks,
completed his life's journey at the age of ninety-two. His funeral Mass
on 2 June would be one with the Mass in the Cathedral of Our Lady of
Africa for his seven sons and brothers. The Holy Father sent Cardinal
Francis Arinze to represent him and preside. The two surviving monks of
Our Lady of Atlas, Fathers Jean-Pierre and Amedeus, stood at the altar
with him, as did the archbishop of Algiers and the Trappist abbot
general and procurator general. In the sanctuary were the cardinal
archbishop of Paris, Jean-Marie Lustiger, three other French bishops,
and five ministers of the Algerian government. Seven of Father
Christopher's brothers and sisters were present.
Cardinal Arinze in his
funeral oration amplified the words the Holy Father had used on
Pentecost: "The monks suffered unheard of violence.... They gave all men
and women an example of total sacrifice in honor of God and religion.
... The monks of Medea established friendly relations with their Muslim
neighbors. They offered their services, especially in the field of
medicine.. .. They also contributed to the development of spiritual
dialogue and in this way gave evidence that sincere Muslims and
Christians are able to gather together and mutually enrich each other
also in the sphere of the spirit."
Two days later, on
Tuesday, 4 June, a small party was transported by helicopter to Medea
and on to the now deserted monastery at Tibhirine under heavy military
escort. The remains of the brothers had been brought there the day
before. The Muslim villagers, who loved the monks and had so often
benefited from their ministrations, had dug the seven graves in the
cemetery by the monastic church. The funeral service within the church
was simple and brief, that at the graveside even more so. No news media
or outsiders had been allowed to come. The brothers were laid to rest
with those of their community who had gone before.
If these Trappist
brothers have been singularly blessed in receiving the grace of
martyrdom, in their heroic victory are not we all also singularly
blessed! Their witness of steadfast faith and a love that does not
flinch in the face of death not only inspires us, but wins for us the
grace to follow their example, each in our own calling. We have all been
baptized into the death of Christ. We live that death so that in death
we may enter into his risen life. We can rejoice in the cruel death of
these men because we know and believe they have truly entered into that
life, the life for which they longed with all their being.
†
† † † † † †
ocso.org
The
Seven
Dom Christian de Chergé
Born on January 18, 1937, at Colmar
(Haut-Rhin), he entered the monastery of Atlas on August 20, 1969,
when already a priest (ordination: March 21, 1964). He made his
noviciate at Aiguebelle, and his solemn profession at Atlas on
October 1, 1976. He was the elected Titular Prior of Atlas since
1984. He had studied in Rome from 1972 to 1974 and was deeply
involved in interreligious dialogue. His
Testament,
written over a year before his death but only discovered afterwards,
has already become a classic of modern religious literature. For a
more in-depth biographical study, see
Monk, Martyr and
Mystic by Dom Bernardo Olivera.
Brother Luc Dochier
Born on January 31, 1914, at Bourg-le-Péage
(Drome), he entered the monastery of Aiguebelle on December 7, 1941,
and was the oldest member of the group. He went to Atlas in 1946,
and made solemn profession there on August 15, 1949, thus spending
more than 50 years in Algeria. He was a Doctor of Medicine before
entering the monastery and was asked by his superiors at Tibhirine
to establish a small clinic there for the sake of their neighbors.
For this reason he was very well known in the whole region.
Father Christophe Lebreton
Born on October 11, 1950, at Blois (Loire et
Cher), he entered the monastery of Tamié on November 1, 1974, and
made solemn profession there on November 1, 1980. He went to Atlas
in 1987 and was ordained priest on January 1, 1990. He was Father
Master of novices and Subprior (second superior). He also is one of
the first members of the generation of 1968 to give his life for the
faith. A selection of his many poems and the final part of his Diary
have been published posthumously.
Brother Michel Fleury
Born on May 21, 1944, at Ste Anne (Loire
Atlantique), he entered the monastery of Bellefontaine on November
4, 1980. He went to Atlas in 1984 and made solemn profession there
on August 28, 1986. He was community cook and gardener, noted for
his simplicity and spirit of prayer.
Father Bruno Lemarchand
Born on March 1, 1930, at St Maixent
(Deux-Sèvres), he entered the monastery of Bellefontaine on March 1,
1981, having been a priest since April 2, 1956. He went to Atlas in
1989 and made solemn profession there on March 21, 1990. Although
Superior since 1992 of Atlas' annex house in Morocco, he was at
Atlas at the time of the abduction, having gone there for the
election of the Prior of Atlas, which was to have taken place on
March 31, 1996.
Father Célestin Ringeard
Born on July 27, 1933, at Touvois (Loire
Atlantique), he entered the monastery of Bellefontaine on July 19,
1983. He had been a priest since December 17, 1960, dedicating
himself in a special way to the street apostolate. He went to Atlas
in 1987 and made solemn profession there on May 1, 1989. He was the
community's enthusiastic cantor.
Brother Paul Favre-Miville
Born on April 17, 1939, at Vinzier (Haute-Savoie),
he worked as a plumber before entering the monastery of Tamié on
August 20, 1984. He went to Atlas in 1989 and made solemn profession
there on August 20, 1991. He was gifted and competent in every type
of manual work.
The following links can
be consulted:
ocso.org
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