Martin McGee OSB reviews a recent work by Archbishop Henri Teissier of Algiers. Archbishop Teissier sees the possibility of mutual respect and peace between Christian and Moslem communities when the people on each side are committed to ordinary human friendship and to dialogue.
The plight of the tiny Christian community in Algeria came to the attention of the English-speaking world with the assassination of the seven Cistercian monks of Tibhirine in 1996 and of Pierre Claverie, the bishop of Oran, shortly afterwards. Since 1992 Algeria has been ravaged by a civil war. Islamic fundamentalists and a military dominated government have been involved in a violent and ruthless struggle since 1992 when the first round of the general election was cancelled for fear of an Islamic Salvation Front victory. An estimated 100,000 people have lost their lives in the merciless killing of men, women and children.
Christians under constant threat
And the tiny Christian community has also borne its share of the violence. In 1993 all foreigners in Algeria were ordered by the GIA (Armed Islamic Group) to leave the country or die. Between 1994-1996 about a hundred Christians lost their lives and eighteen priests and religious in the diocese of Algiers were assassinated as they went about their daily work of serving the poorest sections of Algerian society. The Catholic community in the four dioceses in Algeria has now been reduced to a shadow of its former self, numbering no more than three thousand. Why does it continue to remain in a Muslim country where the physical safety of its members is under constant threat and where converts from Islam are few and far between?
Perhaps the person who has most consistently sought to answer this question has been Archbishop Henri Teissier of Algiers, a Frenchman, fluent Arabic speaker and an Algerian citizen, who has spent over fifty years of his life in Algeria. In a recent book, Chrétiens en Algérie: Un Partage D’Espérance, (Christians in Algeria: A Sharing of Hope, Paris, Desclée De Brouwer, 2002) Henri Teissier outlines the history of the Christian presence in Algeria and why he thinks the Christian Church has a continuing witness to offer in a situation of growing fundamentalism and intolerance. The witness of the tiny Christian community in Algeria, weak in numbers and resources, is one of encounter and dialogue. It has much to teach us.
Three stages in death of Church
With Algerian independence in 1962 the Christian Church was to undergo what Archbishop Teissier describes as ‘three stages in the death of a Church.’ The first followed directly after independence when over a period of a few months 900,000 French settlers departed. With them went nearly all of the few thousand native Christians of Algerian and Muslim origin. In the years following independence about 700 churches or chapels were handed over by the Church to be turned into mosques. A further blow to morale occurred in 1976 when all the Church’s schools, hospitals and other social services were nationalised as part of a general nationalisation programme. However, the arrival of volunteer workers, les coopérants, as technical assistants to the new Algerian state brought new life to the Christian community.
The second ‘death’ occurred in 1993 when all foreigners were ordered out of the country under threat of death by an armed fundamentalist group. The subsequent assassinations of foreign workers meant that almost all the Christian families left the country. With them went also several religious communities. Of the 222 religious sisters in the diocese of Algiers in 1993, there remained three years later a total of 70.
The third ‘death’ occurred with the assassination of the nineteen religious and priests. Today all that remains of a once thriving Christian community is about three thousand Christians and three hundred religious and priests in a country of thirty million people. Archbishop Teissier is often faced with the question: Why remain in Algeria and risk your life in a Muslim country where there are practically no native Christians left?
Spirit of service
For Archbishop Teissier the mission of the Christian Church in Algeria is not mainly concerned with maintaining church services or Christian formation – there is, in fact, practically no indigenous church left to maintain. The key to their presence is the call to draw near in a spirit of service to their Muslim brothers and sisters, especially to those who are suffering from disabilities or who are marginalised in any way. God who is love sends them forth, like the Good Samaritan, to become brothers and sisters of every human being, overcoming in the process barriers of religion, race or culture. This service of the other is what Mgr Teissier calls the ‘sacrament of encounter’ where the Spirit of God is at work in both Muslim and Christian to enrich both sides with His gifts.
The Christian mission in Algeria is lived out in weakness. And this, Mgr Teissier believes, has become a blessing for the Church there. It has allowed them to draw closer to the Algerian people. With the loss of their schools and other institutions in 1976, the religious were free to go and live in small groups in villages and poor areas which had never known a Christian presence. When Christians were numerous at meetings and gatherings, Muslims were hesitant to join them as they felt out of place. This no longer applies. Though few in number, their contacts with the Muslim population are not insignificant. Archbishop Teissier takes as an example a talk which he was invited to give in the city of Mascara on the relationship between Christians and the Algerian national hero, the Emir Abdelkader, a native of the city. The city contains a total of six Christians, two priests and two sisters working in education and two European women married to locals. However, the two priests and two sisters are known and esteemed by most of the people. Three hundred people attended his talk. During his three day visit, Mgr Teissier met dozens of people, all Muslims, more freely, perhaps, than if he had been on a pastoral visit in a Christian country. Mgr Teissier wouldn’t like us to think that he rejoices in their small numbers. In their weakness, however, they are more conscious that God is calling them to go beyond the boundaries of the Church and to share God’s reconciling gift in Jesus Christ with everyone.
Coping with fundamentalism
How does Mgr Teissier cope with the intolerance of Islamic Fundamentalism and with the violence which are so much a part of a section of the fundamentalist movement in Algeria? The main Christian response to the violence and intimidation has been to live as normal a life as possible, going to work and serving the common good. When the armed groups gave an order in 1995 for all pupils to stop going to what they considered to be religiously unacceptable state schools, seven million nevertheless continued to attend school. And the Christian run libraries for students continued to function. Out of this witness of fidelity to the demands of everyday life is born hope for the future. When the Cistercians monks were planning to return to their monastery at Tibhirine, the Abbot General said to the local Muslim people that he did not wish to endanger their lives by having the monks return to the village. They replied that their lives were in danger anyway but ‘that when you are absent we live them without hope. If you return we will live them with hope.’ (p. 77)
There has not been in Algeria any formal dialogue between Christians and Muslims. The present conflict is one between two opposing political and ideological currents within the Muslim population. Dialogue with Muslims has not come about in a theological context. Experience has shown, says Mgr Teissier, that such a doctrinal dialogue leads to mutual incomprehension as discussion gets bogged down in different understandings of prayer, moral and religious life, salvation history etc. A much more fruitful terrain for dialogue has arisen as a result of the recent upheavals in society. The violence, lack of respect for individuals, and the subsequent social impoverishment have troubled the conscience of many people. In this context of moral confusion, Christians and Muslims have begun to discuss the role of religion in society, women’s rights and the recourse to violence.
Christians have won a new respect from the Muslim population as a result of their refusal to abandon the Algerian people in the face of violence. The ensuing dialogue has a spiritual content as people’s consciences are informed either by reference to the Gospel or to the Koran. What all this involves is, in Mgr Teissier’s words, un partage d’humanité (p. 205), a sharing of a common humanity. This concept is best explained by a visit which Mgr Teissier recently received from a Muslim man of humble background. He was upset by a decision taken to move a retired priest who had just spent a year in his town near Algiers. The priest had given French lessons to the young and to the adults and had mixed with the local people. This Muslim man asked tearfully why the priest had to leave. ‘All we’re looking for is a little humanity; we found it with Father.’ (p. 211)
Commitment to friendship and dialogue
In the current tense political situation where Muslim and Jew move further apart in the Holy Land and where extremism elsewhere is flourishing in the aftermath of September the 11th, we may be tempted to despair. Henri Teissier has a simple but difficult message for us. The way to mutual respect and peace requires a commitment to working at relationships. It is in human friendship that prejudice and bitterness are overcome. Dialogue on a personal everyday level must be persevered with. Mgr Teissier gives a wonderful example of how this works in practice. Some Berbers in Kabylia have recently converted to Christianity. The penalty for such an act according to the Sharia is death. A Muslim woman journalist of a fundamentalist persuasion interviewed Mgr Teissier about this issue. While faithfully reporting his remarks, she also published alongside the interview her request that Muslim converts to Christianity should be put to death. Archbishop Teissier phoned the journalist to tell her that this position amounted to a declaration of war on the Christian community. As the following day was National Handicap Day, he invited her to spend the morning with him visiting a centre for the handicapped jointly run by Christians and Muslims. She accepted his invitation and they spent the morning together exploring this common commitment of Muslims and Christians to other people. By the end of the morning they had come closer to each other.
Mgr Teissier is optimistic about the future of Christianity in Algeria if Christians remain faithful to their mission to love their neighbours in a gratuitous manner. People of goodwill will recognise in this sincere love a gift from God which must be preserved. In the words of Archbishop Teissier’s predecessor, Cardinal Duval, ‘The future of the Church is its capacity to love today.’ As for Mgr Teissier, he is happy to remain in Algeria. ‘I give my life here and now freely because God has chosen me as a sign and an instrument of his love for the Algerian people and this choice gives me joy.’ (p. 217)
The brave witness of Mgr Teissier and the Christian community in Algeria to peaceful co-existence and dialogue with their Muslim neighbours makes me wonder how much communication and dialogue exist between the Christian Churches in Europe and Islam. Have we something important to learn from Mgr Teissier about the necessity to share our common humanity with our Muslim brothers and sisters in our own neighbourhoods?
This article first appeared in Spirituality, a publication of the Irish Dominicans.
