Tibhirine - 1978 -

See Dom Christian’s Testament   

In fact, seven of my brothers were martyred; seven Cistercian monks assassinated in Algeria, on the 21st of May. Seven John the Baptist for our times…Seven John the Baptist whose throats were cut…heads not offered on a platter, but left in the dust ....

These are indeed seven of my brothers, who loved until the end, but I will speak of one of them, the only one that I knew and that I would dare consider a friend. Without any merit on my part…Because Dom Christian was a person of friendship and the best proof we have of this lies in the tears of the Algerians who weep for him the way one weeps for a brother and a friend… 

But how can I speak to you about this brother martyr? …. He himself had a great many reservations about this word and the reality it could cover in the spirit of those who used it… One day, while contemplating Christ crucified he meditated on this subject and wrote, forcefully: 

“Jesus could not have wished for Judas’ betrayal.  Is this not too high a price to pay for what is willingly called the glory of martyrdom, to owe it to the murderous gesture of a brother in humanity?”  

And, he wrote with such clarity, in the testament he left to his mother and the members of his family: 

“I could not desire such a death. It seems to me important to say this. I do not see, in fact, how I could rejoice if the people I love were to be accused indiscriminately of my murder. To owe it to an Algerian, whoever he may be, would be too high a price to pay for what will, perhaps, be called, the “grace of martyrdom”, especially if he says he is acting in fidelity to what he believes to be Islam”. 

Dom Christian wished to give his life, completely, like Christ…He wanted to love until the end, like Christ…. It was in Christ that he forgave in advance “the friend of my final moment”, the murderer who would not know what he was doing… It is in Christ that he became a martyr! 

All this seems to have been lived very far from us…But in fact, it is lived very close to us…. On October 30, 1994, Dom Christian wrote to me, “No matter what happens, let us remain united in the communion of saints”. This was both a promisei and a request… This mystery of the communion of saints has always nourished my joy and my hope, but now it nourishes me even more since my brother Christian, illuminated by Christ’s glory, invested with the gift of the Spirit, gazes deeply into the eyes of the Father, “to contemplate with Him his children of Islam”, they too illuminated with Christ’s glory and invested with the gift of the Spirit!… His brothers… My brothers… Our brothers! 

Yvon Moreau, Abbot of Oka

CHANTECLER   SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 1996