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For the first time, Christian de Chergé’s letters reveal his inner dialogue with Islam.
October 1972, Christian de Chergé, young priest and Cistercian monk, had just completed two years at the Pontifical Institute of Arab and Islamic… Read more  Studies in Rome. In 1974, he joined the community at the monastery of Tibhirine in Algeria. In Rome, Christian had met Father Maurice Borrmans, a White father and Professor of Islamic studies. They become great friends and wrote to each other until the decisive years of 1994-1996. In his letters to the professor, Christian talks about his relationship with Islam and his Muslim brothers, his private and daily life in Algeria.
In this book, readers will find complete reproductions of the 74 letters written by Christian de Chergé to Maurice Borrmans from 1974 to 1995. They constitute a unique and precious testimony of Christian de Chergé’s spiritual and intellectual apprenticeship of Islam, the interreligious dialogues he practiced in his life with all his doubts and hopes, as well as his efforts to make a Christian reading of the Koran. He also writes of the suffering caused by his superiors’ procrastination and the deep crisis that, at Christmas in 1979, took him to Charles de Foucault’s Assekrem.
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