A particular insight lies at the starting point of the research being undertaken concerning the monks of the Atlas region: the thought of Christian de Chergé is innovative and likely to be of interest to the whole Church in the matter of interreligious dialogue. The precariousness of the situation of the monks in Tibhirine gave rise to a fruitfulness that derives from the Gospel.

It is not surprising that “a theology of the meeting of religions” should have emerged from the context of monastic life, because interreligious dialogue has its origin in spirituality. The thought of Christian Chergé is not easy to make out since it was not developed in a theological milieu but was born from the daily life of the monastery (homilies, commentaries etc.). Furthermore, to gather his thoughts without “betraying” them is difficult.

1. How view other religions?
With regard to dialogue, Christian de Chergé relies on the vision of John-Paul II. How can we appreciate the Pope’s thought, his daring? Where does it come from? We must know that John-Paul II lost his best female friend in a concentration camp; this explains how his urge towards interreligious dialogue begins in his own flesh.

As regards Christian de Chergé, the meeting with Mohammed, his friend (an Algerian field-guard) is at the basis of his thought. Christian had developed a friendship with Mohammed and committed himself to a deep relationship based on faith. Christian will state, “Mohammed brought freedom to my faith.” During an altercation in the street Mohammed tried to protect Christian, his friend, and to calm the aggressors. The next day he was found assassinated. Christian understood this “event” as a sign from God, and this painful episode will never be forgotten. Christian comes back to it over the following years. “I know at least one much loved brother, a convinced Muslim, who gave his life out of love for another, concretely, by shedding his blood. It is an irrefutable testimony that I welcome as an incredible opportunity. From that time on, in fact, I have been able to place, within my hope for the communion of all the chosen with Christ, that friend who lived, to the point of death, the one commandment” (in Journées Romaines: Chrétiens et Musulmans, pour un projet commun de société, 1989). Several years later, when preaching on the martyrdom of love (31st March 1994), he will say again, “I cannot forget Mohammed who one day saved my life by risking his own, and who was assassinated by his brothers because he refused to betray his friends into their hands. He did not want to choose between these and those. Ubi caritas … Deus ibi est!” (in L’invincible espérance, p. 203)

For Christian, the gift of Mohammed’s life led to the discovery of the Eucharist. The Eucharist means receiving one’s life from another. That is the meaning of the sacrifice: one cannot receive one’s life without giving one’s life. In Christian theology, Eucharist means receiving in order to give, but in the mind of Christian, there is a reversal of the meaning of sacrifice: to give in order to receive. His calling is profoundly Eucharistic, it is essential to him and is deeply embedded in him.

For Christian, “Mohammed gave his life as did Christ. . . . Each Eucharist makes him infinitely present to me in the Glorified Body, for he lived the Eucharist to the end.” And if there is one text of this sort there are many. “The Eucharist is for all people, this very day,” and not just when all mankind will have become Catholic. Christian knew that Mohammed was in danger, and Mohammed, knowing he was threatened, accepted that Christian should pray for him, but he added, “I know you will pray for me . . . but you, Christians, don’t know how to pray.”

We need to discover, in the actual life of those Muslims whom we know, the “Eucharistic signs.” The vocation of Christian is, from this time on, to be Eucharistic, praying among others who are praying, in Algeria which is “That land where the love granted was the greatest.” He wed this land, its people. Once when he visited his mother, she told him, “My son, flowers do not move about to find the sun; it is the sun which comes to visit them.” All this will provide the basis of his theology.

From this time onwards he understands that the vow of stability means stability within a people: to take up stability in the land of Algeria and therefore to be closely tied to the local Church.

Fifteen years later, on 1 October 1976, he made his solemn profession and in his request, drawn up on September14 of that year, he wrote, “I wish that my brothers who have taken the vow of stability in the Atlas should accept me permanently into their company, in the very name of that continuity, allowing me to live in PRAYER, in the service of the Church of Algeria, listening to the Muslim soul, if it please God, right to the final gift of my death ut in omnibus glorificetur Deus!” The Father Abbot Visitor and the Father Immediate, Abbot of Aiguebelle, wrote to the Abbot General, “. . . and I see in this solemn profession . . . and in the choice of those who have not yet taken the vow of stability to indeed undertake this vow in Algeria, as a conscious response made by the whole community to this action of God” (Report, 2 November, 1976).

A second key event, which took place in 1975, one year before his vows, (recounted in “Nuit de feu” , in L'invincible espérance, p. 33 f.) occurs while Christian is praying in the church during the night. Christian feels that someone is drawing close to him and saying “Pray for me”; and they start praying together the Our Father, the Magnificat, the fatihâ, prayers of praise, of thanks. Then, together with the Christian friend who had come with the Muslim, they pray for three hours. They will not see each other again. But before leaving, the Muslim goes round the monastery four times, dancing, and singing, he is so happy! Christian will not speak of this until his vows; then he will say “this event was not a dream, it is a fact”; it will be the affirmation of his vocation. Concerning this night Christian will say later, “These three hours made me live what my faith, for centuries and centuries, had known was possible.” The issue of hope is found there. The “theology of the meeting of religions” is based on eschatology; it is a matter of rethinking the theology of hope.

In 1979, he experiences a crisis (was he disappointed with the community?) and leaves for Assekrem for three months; he reads and prays a great deal on the Qur’an. By the time he comes back, the Rabat es-Salâm (the Link of Peace) has been founded by Claude Rault: prayer, sharing on themes with a Sufi community, “our Alawiya brothers of Médéa.”

Those are the key moments in the life of Christian de Chergé; we will constantly go from one to the other: from theological reflection to the key elements and vice versa.

2. How does Christian understand dialogue?
In his address given at the Journées Romaines Dominicaines, Christian recounted the following anecdote about his relationship with Mohammed, who used to come regularly to talk with him. One day the latter reproached him for his absence: “It’s a long time since we dug our well together,” to which Christian replied somewhat teasingly, “And what do we find at the bottom of the well, Christian water or Muslim water?” Mohammed replied, “Really, after all the time we have been travelling together, you don’t know? What we find is the water of God.”

Dialogue for Christian is an exodus, an Easter road, a hegira. It is not an activity, a debating circle; it is an interior path, a deep spiritual attitude, and therefore for him dialogue is above all not “theological.” He cannot stand the useless and narrow-minded jousting. He does not reject the four “typical” forms of dialogue mentioned in the Roman documents “Dialogue and Mission” and “Dialogue and Proclamation,” but for Christian it is something else; it goes further than this typology.

a. The “What” of Dialogue
Dialogue is a necessity based on the spiritual bonds that draw us together. It is spiritual unity that brings us together. Dialogue is based on the unity which exists between us. It is from this unity that we proceed; from what we have in common, and not from what makes us different.

Dialogue is not “political,” it is “theological” in its scope, in the sense that its purpose is not peace, or agreement. Peace is a result, peace is a gift; it is not a goal. (These days there is a risk of turning dialogue into a tool.) Peace, clear agreement: these are not the purposes of dialogue.

There is a theological necessity of moving towards the other if one wishes to come to God. “To draw close to the other and to draw close to God: these are one and the same,” Christian says. The first step: it is God who takes it towards us. (cf. Ecclesiam Suam, 70-80). We must show the same generosity in this matter; it is not the others who have “taken the first step.”

Dialogue also has the effect of taking us out of our securities, of “emptying our hands”; it is the work of emptying so as to allow Christ to fill. Dialogue strips us of our certainties. We do not know what to expect from dialogue (we risk remaining with the understanding we already have of the truth, locked in the truth). Dialogue is an exodus, a discovery of Christ; it is a matter of “losing what I know about Christ so as to rediscover him in the light of Easter.”

Dialogue, for Christian, is profoundly existential, deriving from a long “living together” and from shared concerns (life, working with neighbors, cooperative action, all done on an equal bias and therefore with people). Tibhirine refuses to tackle social issues; they do not wish to be “bosses” precisely because dialogue means staying on an equal footing. This form of dialogue consists of trivial sharing and of exchanges based on faith and prayer; dialogue is nourished by prayer (the Brothers had lent a room in the monastery to the Muslims). The monastery bell and the call of the muezzin are part of this dialogue, both of them dialoguing, so to speak! On the other hand, dialogue does not mean leaving the monastery; dialogue can be experienced by those who never meet a Buddhist or a Hindu. No, dialogue is an interior attitude; it is a manner of being: one thinks, one prays in a dialogical context, for “the barriers of our closed minds have given way.”

b. The conditions necessary for dialogue
Humility. God calls us to humility. Christian often comments on the degrees of humility mentioned in chapter seven of the Rule of Saint Benedict. He makes us understand that we are not “the whole”; humility means “ceasing to claim to be better or superior.”

Another’s faith must be taken into account. It means respecting another’s faith, a certain delicacy in one’s approach, for another’s faith is God’s gift to him, and another’s faith is God’s gift to me. It is a journey of exodus in faith; and neglecting the other’s gift of faith for me would be mean neglecting the Holy Spirit. This gift is made to me so as to move me forward on my own journey.

¬Going to another’s school: “Expect something new when going to another’s school to read the ‘signs’.” Dialogue does not exist in order to make comparisons (e.g. Ramadan-Lent). I need the other so as to read the signs that will enable me to understand the mystery of God, which is precisely what I am seeking.

c. The foundations of dialogue:
Comparing what the Church says on the unity of the human race and on the unique salvific mediatorship of Christ, even if Christian does not reject the Church in any way, the foundations of the dialogue for him are:

The mercy of God, for each and every one. All, in their respective traditions, know that they are sinners who have been forgiven. We are all seated at “the sinners’ table,” according to Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus. We have, therefore, a common vocation, Christians, Muslims and Jews: to be witnesses to the history of the mercy of God. All the religions have a common aspiration: to be open to transcendence.

The Oneness of God. The One God. We have different views on God, but we do not have several ‘Gods’. We are the “one community of the One,” for “the one God gathers to himself one single community.” According to Christian this means we are taking up the theme of the communion of Saints, the area of ecclesiology. And what is Christian’s ecclesiology?

This dialogue is marked by “the Hereafter.” It is based on the Hereafter, on eschatology; it belongs to the logic of the Hereafter. “Monks are the resolute practitioners of a way of being in the world which would have no meaning outside of what we call “the ultimate purposes of hope,” the “eschatology in the now” of Bultmann. We are, even at this moment, in the bosom of the Father. (This does not gloss over the differences.)

What else does Christian say about dialogue? It is a “mystical ladder” consisting of two poles which are our respective “faiths”: the Christian faith and the Muslim faith. This ladder is planted, placed on the earth. Between the two poles there are rungs inserted into both poles. These rungs are not what we think they are, not beliefs held in common. They are the gift of oneself to the Absolute, prayer, fasting, sharing, almsgiving, conversion, hospitality, pilgrimage, jihad. . . . They are made to be climbed up (and not to be counted). This ladder is also placed on the upper support, on the One God, but also on the communion of Saints, the heavenly Jerusalem, from which we come (Gaudium et Spes, 22,5). Dialogue is therefore profoundly mystical, spiritual; to dialogue is to “go up the ladder.”

d. The fruits of dialogue
Dialogue is a spiritual emulation, and the principal fruit of dialogue is a deeper penetration into the mystery of God. For that reason there is a stripping, leaving certainties behind so as to enter more deeply into the mystery of God. We dwell in the mystery by means of conversion, not by understanding it.

3. What is the role of Islam in the plan of God?
This is a question asked of Christian. To put it more fully: What is the role of religions in the plan of God, in revelation, in Christian theology?

There are various responses to this question: other religions are “preparations for the Gospel”; they are positive ways (Rahner, Panikkar); they have no meaning (Barth); Islam is demonized, is a natural religion, is a simple searching for the divine (Daniélou); a Christian heresy (John Damascene); the Christian revelation via Ishmael (Massignon), etc.

Christian’s thought is different. “For thirty years Islam has been a burning question for me.” “I am immensely curious to know the mind of God. . . . Love alone will give me God’s answer; I will know after I am dead.” This means that it must stay as a question, as a lack of knowledge that leads to searching, to dialogue.

Christian turns the problem upside down and “lets himself be challenged by it”: the answer is to be found in dialogue. Since the question remains a question, the reply is in the order of hope. “I will find the reply only if I go forward on the path of dialogue. I will enter into it by committing myself to the hope that unity is found in the Father’s heart. I will discover it in the paschal light of Christ, who is the only ‘Muslim.’” In his Testament he writes: “I could, if it please God, sink my look into that of the Father and contemplate with him his Muslim children, seeing them in the way that he sees them, fully enlightened by the glory of Christ, the results of his Passion, endowed with the gift of the Spirit whose secret joy will always be to establish communion and to re-establish similarity while allowing differences” (in L’invincible espérance, p. 223). Dialogue is not the result of human reasoning; it is the exodus . . . the question.

Christian’s Testament recapitulates everything; we come back to it again and again. The children of Islam are not saved despite their religion but because of it, saved by the light of Christ. (Christian is faithful to the documents of the Magisterium: “Rays of truth, seeds of the Word”). The question is more than a question; it is a living hope, the hope of salvation in the light of Christ, of the unity of all in the heart of the Father. “I am learning not to lock up the other in the idea that I have of him, not even in the idea he has of himself, as the Church taught me to do. We have to tear away all the representations, even those which Islam has of itself. The heart of the Father is greater than the ideas we can have of him.”

Christianity does not know itself. According to Teilhard de Chardin, “The Church is still a child, it is immeasurably greater than it thinks it is.” (Christian often refers to Teilhard.) Our idea of Christ is insufficient: “Christ is greater than Jesus” (Panikkar). In this way Christology is being rethought. During the twentieth century Jesus was at the focus. This must give way to a return to the Christology of the first centuries, rediscovering what the Fathers taught about the Word of God. In Christian de Chergé there is a Christology of the logos. An analogy can be made between Christian de Chergé and Teilhard de Chardin: Christology and the questions put by science, as regards Teilhard; Christology in relation to other religions, as regards Christian.

4. What can we agree upon in the dialogue?
When we make progress … there are fragments of a reply.

A single faith in the mercy of God is “common” to the two religious traditions. The term “mercy” occurs 339 times in the Qur’an and the term raham 57 times, the “seal of the covenant” for Christian. There is “a shared vocation to multiply the fountains of mercy.” (Cf. John Paul II to the Muslims in Casablanca and in Dives in misericordia, which unfortunately does not quote the Qur’an.

The issue of “one community”: The hope for unity in the heart of the Father makes us believe in the one community in the One God (cf. Nostra Aetate, 1, “a single human community,” and cf. Qur’an: “If God had wished, he would have made of you one community”): we all believe in a unity hidden beneath the differences.

For him unity is not a “completed” unity, in the Kingdom, but a “unity that is delayed,” in the sense that it is given but not yet brought to fullness. “The shared hope of a delayed unity”: it would be enough for us to welcome it together. We must realize that it is this unity which makes our every attempt to meet possible.

The question of “difference”: a “differentiated unity.” Of course there is difference, but in the first place there is unity. We must start from unity and then ask the question, “Why are we different?” The difference then becomes almost the “the sacrament of unity,” a special gift of God to each; but each must know that God is one and that each represents something of that unity. There is one flock, despite the differences. Something within this difference is part of revelation; (cf. John Paul II in, Speech to the Cardinals and to the Curia, 22nd December, 1986); is a manifestation, a sacrament of unity. There are differences which divide and differences which do not divide: gifts, charisms, lead to the one community. The totality of humanity and the differences within humanity are manifestations of the one humanity (cf. M. Amaladoss in “Le cosmos dansant”). In the West we have great difficulty in thinking in terms of otherness; we are unable to think both of equality and difference.

A theology of hope. The best instrument of the Spirit is difference, “the Spirit whose secret joy will always be to establish communion and to reestablish similarity,” the quasi sacrament of unity. It is a question of positing the primacy of unity and then, afterwards, differentiation. The ecclesiology of Christian de Chergé starts with the communion of Saints, from the Hereafter; the centre of gravity is in the Hereafter. It is a theology of hope, a theology of the Hereafter!

Monastic life and interreligious dialogue are indispensable to the life of the Church because of their eschatological basis. Monastic life is a sign of eschatology. Monastic life and interreligious dialogue are linked together, for interreligious dialogue reminds monastic life of its eschatological orientation. This eschatological unity asks questions of monastic community life. Monastic life is a sign for the Church.

In this way, the impasse on eschatology in the theology of religions leads nowhere. “Mission” in the sense of “articles of faith” or “the new evangelization” is unacceptable since it is a discourse of fear. The thought underlying these expressions is “How can the Church replicate itself?” whereas its deepest identity is the communion of Saints which transcends all boundaries.

Christian reflected a great deal about the mystery of the Visitation of Mary to her cousin Elizabeth (see the article by J.P. Flachaire). Mary’s Magnificat springs forth on meeting the other. The meeting with the other allows Christian revelation to express itself fully. The meeting with other believers also allows the celebration of the Eucharist to occur.

5. Martyrdom
The situation in which Christian found himself led him to develop his idea of martyrdom and to write several times on this topic (in L’invincible espérance, chs.12 to 15). In fact he reflected on this question from 1993 onwards.

On 24 December 1993, Christmas eve, an armed group arrives asking for Fr. Luc, who is a doctor; they want medicine. The leader orders Fr. Paul to bring the “local pope.” Fr. Christian comes up very calmly, praying the words “O God, come to my assistance, Lord, make haste to help us.” Like each of his brothers there, he imagines that the moment of death has perhaps come. The meeting which then takes place between the prior and the leader of the armed group, Sayah Attiyah, who introduces himself as the local emir of the GIA, is particularly tense. It is about eight o’clock in the evening of 24 December 1993. In presenting himself before the head of the militia who was responsible for the death of the Croats on December 14, Christian says with authority, “This is a house of peace; no one has ever entered here carrying weapons. If you wish to speak with us, come in, but leave your weapons outside. If this is not possible, let us talk outside.” In fact they do go outside.

Christian writes later on, “He was armed with a dagger and an automatic pistol. There were six of them and it was dark. . . . We faced each other.” Sayah Attiyah asks for money, medicine and the doctor to treat the wounded up in the mountains. He says to the prior, “You have no choice.” Christian replies, “Yes, I do have a choice.” These men from the mountains are not used to rebuttal. Christian calmly refuses the three demands and says, “We are preparing to celebrate Christmas, and Christmas for us is the birth of the Prince of Peace, yet you are coming here bearing arms!” The leader seems moved, for he replies, “Excuse me, I didn’t know.” He says he will come back. The three men go off, after offering their hands (hands which had probably assassinated the Croats) to the monks. At 10.30 pm Christian rings the bell.

The monks will ask very seriously whether they should leave or not. In the end they will not be able to leave. But at this point of time a personal task is undertaken: “Disarm them; disarm me.” And Christian will start to write on martyrdom, from 1994 to 1996. First of all, his Testament and three homilies for the Easter Triduum and the homily for Pentecost:

His testament, Quand un à-Dieu s’envisage, written between 1st December 1993 and 1st January 1994.
The “martyrdom of love” (Holy Thursday, 31 March 1994).
The “martyrdom of innocence” (Good Friday, 1 April 1994).
The “martyrdom of hope” (Easter Vigil, 2-3 April 1994).
The “martyrdom” of the Holy Spirit (Pentecost, 22 May 1994).

Are the seven Trappists really martyrs in the way this term has been used throughout Christian tradition? Did they die for their faith in Christ or for political reasons? What must we think of their virtual canonization by the Christian people?

But what is “martyrdom” in the Christian tradition? Since the Council the question of martyrdom has been put in a new way, for there has been a shift in the Christian notion of martyrdom.

Should we leave? “The Order needs monks more than martyrs,” was the reply of the Abbot General. Bishop Duval had simply replied, “Constancy, constancy, constancy.” “Stick together” was Christian’s translation.

Why did they stay? They were unable to leave because, tied to their neighbours, to their friends, to Islam, to the land, to the Church, to the people of Algeria, “my life has been GIVEN to God and to this country,” wrote Christian in his Testament. To leave would have meant rejecting their vocation. “Even death itself cannot separate those whom monastic life has brought together.” They were assassinated on 21 May 1996 according to the statement made by the GIA; the whole world learned about it two days later.

Were they assassinated because they believed in Christ?

The GIA speaks of “a religious reason.” Therefore were they “martyred for the faith”? In Christian’s eyes, martyrdom in that sense, in history, is questionable. “Such martyrs are arrogant, for they insult their persecutors, they think they are pure (in comparison with the others who are impure); they think they know the judgment of God.”

Interreligious dialogue deepens the Christian faith on this point: one may not provoke martyrdom by means of violent acts. These days “martyrdom for the faith” cannot be sought because it would discredit Islam. Consequently, there is a shift in the notion of martyrdom, from “martyr for the faith” to “the martyrdom of love” (an expression of Jeanne de Chantal). We had to wait for Maximilian Kolbe to find a witness for “the martyrdom of love,” for he offered himself as a substitute to save the father of a family. He was both martyr and confessor at the same time. .

In the mind of Christian, the “Washing of the Feet” in the Gospel of St. John takes on great importance. “And he loved them to the end.” Christian tradition legitimates martyrdom; the tradition of the Council makes this “martyrdom of love” possible, the martyrdom of love as a gift of one’s life for other believers. The gift of “the martyrdom of love” is a “gift” of life, and not a “taking” of life; one receives, one does not take.

In the perspective of a theology of religions, one cannot stay with “martyrdom for the faith.” If Christian martyrdom is essentially a “martyrdom of love,” then, by an invaluable paradox, “the martyrdom of love” is lived not only by Christians. The friend of Christian de Chergé, Mohammed, “gave his life just as Christ did.” And this is true in other domains such as prayer. Christians are people at prayer like other people at prayer. Their particularity? When the apostles ask Jesus how they should pray, he gives them a stance: to turn towards the Father, and bids them say “Our Father,” for they are in relationship with other believers.

A Christian theology which reflects upon itself in a pluri-religious situation (and in a context of indifference, also) forces us today to develop theology further still. In keeping with Christian martyrdom, the martyrdom of love is also the martyrdom of every-day life. “We have given our lives to Christ, but we do not like the fact that he takes it in the every-day, drop by drop!” The prophetic task of the Church is perhaps, in last analysis, linked to martyrdom, to witness, to giving one’s life to the end, so as to receive one’s life from Another.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Christian de Chergé, L’invincible espérance, Textes recueillis et présentés par Bruno Chenu, Bayard/Centurion, 1997.

Idem. Dieu pour tout jour, Chapitres de Père Christian de Chergé à la communauté de Tibhirine (1986-1996). Abbaye d’Aiguebelle, 2004, 536 p.

Idem. Jusqu’à l’extrême (forthcoming).

Bruno Chenu, Sept vies pour Dieu et pour l’Algérie, Textes recueillis et présentés par . . . avec la collaboration amicale des moines de Tamié et de Bellefontaine, Bayard/Centurion 1996.

Marie-Christine Ray, Christian de Chergé, Prieur de Tibhirine, Bayard/Centurion 1998.

Jean-Pierre Flachaire, Notre-Dame de l’Atlas, une présence de Visitation, in Collectanea Cisterciensia