On 26 March 1996, seven Trappist monks living in northern Algeria were kidnapped and killed. In 2018, along with 12 other Catholic priests and religious who were murdered between 1994 and 1996 in Algeria’s savage civil war, they were beatified.
Their story inspired an award-winning 2010 French film Of Gods and Men. And now an Australian Anglican priest, the Rev Jane Foulcher, has published a history of these monks. Life Here Together: The Prophetic Gift of the Tibhirine Monks drew praise from the English theologian Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe OP as a “brilliant book” which is “of the greatest pertinence to our own time of rising violence”.
The Catholic Weekly spoke with Rev Foulcher, who works in Canberra, about her research.
As an Anglican priest, how did you come to write a book about the martyrdom of Trappist monks?
I stumbled across the Tibhirine monks when I was doing my PhD. I was working on humility and discovered that one of the monks, Christian de Chergé, had given a whole series of talks to his community on humility, drawing on the Rule of Benedict.
Anglicans have great respect for the Benedictine tradition—it is part of our shared heritage. Fr Christian’s talks were rich but made even more powerful by the story of the Tibhirine community—the monks choosing to stay in Algeria during the 1990s civil war, aware of the possible cost.
The path they took is not unique. The title of my book Life Here Together echoes the title of a book by the German Lutheran Dietrich Bonhoeffer, executed by the Nazi regime in 1945.
When Bonhoeffer established a small seminary for the underground confessing church he drew on the monastic tradition to shape its community life. Bonhoeffer also understood the “cost of discipleship”. So you see, there is common ground here for Christians from different traditions living together in times of crisis.
Was it easy to research? Was there enough documentation?
The monks left a substantial body of writings – journals, letters, homilies, talks – most now held in a monastery in France. A lot of material has been published in French but not much has been translated into English. This was a key reason for writing the book – so the English-speaking world would have more access to their gift.
Why did they choose to live in an Islamic country?
The answer to this question is complex! First there’s a long history of Christianity in North Africa—after all Augustine was born in what is modern-day Algeria—and was a bishop there. Pope Leo’s recent visit to Algeria was a reminder of this.
The Trappists established a monastery in Algeria in 1843, not long after it was colonised by France. After Algerian independence in 1962 the monastery was nearly closed, but the local bishop was very keen for the monks to stay as spiritual support for the small remnant Christian community in what was now a predominantly Muslim country.
The monks thought hard about the “why” of staying and came to believe that they were simply called to be people of prayer among other people of prayer (priants parmi d’autre priants). They respected the prayer of their Muslim neighbours.
A key factor in their decision to stay during the “black decade” was the relationship between the monastery and Tibhirine, the village that had grown around it. The monks farmed cooperatively with their Muslim neighbours. Brother Luc, who was a medical doctor, ran a busy dispensary for almost 50 years.
In fact, the monastic community of Our Lady of Atlas that was located at Tibhirine still exists. The community had a small annex in Morocco, and this is where the two surviving monks spent the rest of their lives. This community is now located in Midelt. Like Algeria, most of Morocco’s population is Muslim. So yes, a small Christian presence in a sea of Islam. Still with the same charism of being a humble, discreet presence.
The prior, Fr de Chergé, preferred “martyrdom for love” to “martyrdom for the faith”. Can you tell us a bit about his approach to “interreligious dialogue”?
Fr Christian’s biography in important to understanding his approach to interreligious dialogue. He had lived in Algeria as a child and his devout Catholic mother had fostered a respect for Islam in him. Then, in 1959, during the Algerian war of independence, when he was doing his national service, Christian’s life was saved by a Muslim, a rural guard who was on patrol with him. The two men had a warm friendship and often talked of their respective faiths.
Mohammed was murdered for defending his young friend. His death inspired Christian’s determination to return to Algeria and dedicate himself to a life of prayer alongside Muslims. He understood Mohammed’s death as a “martyrdom for love”.
Fr Christian was not particularly interested in formal interreligious dialogue – dialogue that remains at a purely intellectual level. Rather he was committed to what he called “existential” dialogue – the dialogue that arises from daily life, from living and praying side by side, day by day, grounded in the recognition that we are all children of God.
So encounter with “the other” might happen in the garden, at the monastery gate, in the dispensary. Importantly Fr Christian understood that such encounters could transform both parties – if we are open to the work of the Holy Spirit.
More formally the monastery hosted a regular meeting, the Ribât es Salâm (Bond of Peace), where a group of priests and religious sought to understand Islam as a lived faith. Not long after it was founded in 1979, a local group of Sufi Muslims asked to join the Ribât – not to debate, but to pray with them.
For over 10 years they shared silent prayer and respectful reflection around a chosen theme. And undertook to pray for each other between gatherings.
There are Christians who are reflexively hostile to Muslims. But the Tibhirine monks wanted to live in Algeria as priants parmi d’autre priants. Do they have a lesson for us?
Yes, the monks have much to teach us! The first thing we need to do is to address this reflexive reaction in ourselves, which is often driven by ignorance and fear.
While they were deeply committed to their own religious tradition the monks also learned about the faith of their Muslim neighbours. We need to do the same.
But more that this we need, like the monks, to get to know our neighbours. We need to open ourselves to friendship. As Pope Francis said, “the Gospel tells us constantly to run the risk of a face-to-face encounter with others.”
The nine monks spent two years of painful uncertainty with martyrdom constantly before their eyes. How did they live with that dread?
They were human. It wasn’t easy. The decision to stay was carefully revisited on many occasions. But while the possibility of a violent death was certainly real, they were clear that they were not choosing death – but life. They were simply continuing to live, where God had called them to be, alongside their Muslim neighbours.
The youngest monk, Fr Christophe Lebreton, just 45 when he was killed, left a prayer journal which covers those last years of uncertainty. So we have an insight into one monk’s experience of this time.
Yes, he experienced some very painful times. But what is inspiring is how he allows God to illuminate his darkness – through his reading of Scripture, through prayer, through his work in the garden with his neighbours, through his writing … Like his brother monks he was committed to being there, finding God there. Stability.
In the middle of this period of uncertainty he wrote this in his prayer journal: “We live together in a land of hope. We cultivate it. We are dwellers in your house. We live there. We pray there. We abide there until it is time to die. We live together in your hand. Who could dislodge us from this blatant happiness.”
The film Of Gods and Men was very powerful. Was it a faithful picture?
Yes it was. I saw it again recently and it’s still just as powerful. I first saw the film in France when it was released in 2010.
My husband had a six-month residency in Paris and I was working on my doctorate – on the chapter about the monks. I noticed how close the script of the film was to the texts that I’d been reading in French.
The only thing that the film doesn’t show is the relationship of the monastic community to the local church. The film gives the impression that the monks were completely alone – however, while Tibhirine was certainly isolated, particularly as travel became increasingly dangerous, the monks’ relationships with leaders and members of the small Christian community of Algeria were an important part of the story.
What prophetic message do the monks of Tibhirine have for us in today’s geopolitical tensions?
After armed insurgents first visited the monastery on Christmas Eve of 1993 Fr Christian struggled to know how to pray for their leader, Sayah Attiya: “I can’t ask the good God: kill him.
But I can ask: disarm him.” But he also recognised that he could not pray this unless he also prayed “disarm me and disarm us.” We all share a tendency to violence.
Pope Leo has challenged Christian leaders to build every community as “a house of peace, where one learns how to defuse hostility through dialogue, where justice is practiced and forgiveness is cherished.”
Fr Christophe called the monastery “a school of peace” – a place where he was learning, often painfully, to cultivate peaceful relationships with himself, with his brothers and with his neighbours.
In this increasingly violent and divided world we need, with the monks of Tibhirine, to sign up for such a school of peace.
