Christian de Chergé: Spiritual Writings, selected, edited, and translated by Christian Krokus and Habib Zanzana.
Orbis Books

During the night of March 26–27, 1996, Christian de Chergé and six other Trappist monks were abducted from Our Lady of Atlas Monastery in Tibhirine, Algeria. Members of the Islamic Armed Group (GIA) held them captive for two months before they were killed on May 21, 1996. Over the past thirty years, Father Christian and his six confreres have become widely known and deeply admired.

The first widespread attention came with the circulation of Christian’s Final Testament written in 1994 and sent to his brother with instructions not to open it until after his death—a possibility he considered imminent amid escalating violence in Algeria.

Soon after the 1996 tragedy, a rich body of French-language literature appeared on Christian de Chergé and the Tibhirine monks, ranging from early biographies and accounts of their martyrdom to theological studies and editions of their own writings. A landmark English volume was John W. Kiser’s The Monks of Tibhirine: Faith, Love, and Terror in Algeria (2002).

The story reached an even wider audience with the release of the French film Des hommes et des dieux (Of Gods and Men), which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010 and won the Grand Prix, the festival’s second most prestigious award. The film portrays the monks’ deep bonds with their Muslim neighbors in Tibhirine and their prayerful, agonizing discernment to remain with them—despite knowing that staying meant grave danger.

Recognition of their witness grew further on December 8, 2018, when nineteen Catholics killed in Algeria—including the seven Trappist monks of Tibhirine—were beatified in Oran. The ceremony, honoring priests, nuns, and brothers martyred between 1994 and 1996 during the Algerian Civil War, emphasized peace, dialogue, and reconciliation. Significantly, it was the first beatification ceremony to take place in a Muslim-majority country.

Apart from the Final Testament, English translations of de Chergé’s writings have been limited. Notable exceptions are excerpts in Christian Salenson’s Christian de Chergé: A Theology of Hope (2012) and the recent volume God for All Days: The Final Monastic Chapters of Christian de Chergé (2025), which gathers hundreds of his chapter talks (community conferences) from the final years of his life.

With Christian de Chergé: Spiritual Writings, Christian Krokus and Habib Zanzana render an invaluable service to English readers. The volume presents twenty-one of de Chergé’s chapter talks along with a carefully chosen selection of letters, retreat conferences, homilies, and articles—each revealing the depth of his spirituality, which was rooted in the Christian monastic tradition and enriched by his encounter in love and in truth with Islam. Zanzana’s preface and Krokus’s introduction situate these texts within their political, cultural, religious, and linguistic contexts.

Blessed Christian de Chergé’s Final Testament has justly been hailed as one of the most profound spiritual texts of the twentieth century. Its title—Quand un A-DIEU s’envisage—literally means “When a GOOD-BYE Is Envisioned.” Yet, by his use of capitalization and hyphenation, Christian calls our attention to the root meaning of adieu—“to God,” and his use of s’envisage (“is envisaged”) subtly evokes visage, the French word for face. The title thus points to a farewell that becomes a movement toward the face of God, as expressed in the closing lines of his Testament:

And you too, my friend of the last moment, who will not have known what you were doing—yes, for you too I offer this THANK YOU and this “TO-GOD,” whose face appears in yours. May it be granted that we meet again, happy thieves in paradise, if it pleases God, the Father of us both. AMEN! AMIN! Insh’allah!

In his final writing in this volume—a 1994 address to the European Commission for Monastic Interreligious Dialogue—Christian de Chergé called his listeners to expand their horizons by engaging not only with monks of other spiritual traditions but also with Muslims, urging them to “enter into the axis of the other” because

The other matters to me. It is as other, stranger, Muslim, that he is my BROTHER. His difference bears meaning for me, for who I am. It provides substance to our mutual relationship, as well as to our common quest for God (p. 163).

Echoing the Rule of St. Benedict, where the ardent search for God defines the monastic vocation (RB 58:7), de Chergé's deep reverence for Islam—forged in profound friendships, including one Muslim who sacrificed his life to save him—revealed a divine invitation: God beckons us to seek and encounter him in the Qur’an, the hadith, and the devoted lives of faithful Muslims. This luminous vision wove the golden thread through his theology, inspiring us today to embrace our brothers and sisters in a shared, joyful pilgrimage toward the One who unites us all.

This review was originally published in the Journal of Social Encounters and appears here with permission.