Tamisatge de les pells de taronja mòltes

In 1989, Tunisian born historian and intellectual, Mohamed Talbi, and Olivier Clément agreed to co-author a book on faith and dialogue entitled, Un Respect Têtu: ‘Hard-headed Respect’ reflects both the mind-set of the writers and their joint project. Their approach to Islamic-Christian dialogue, which they consider to be of major contemporary importance, conveys a sense of practical, realistic, unsentimental respect for the ‘other’, and importantly for the faith of the ‘other’. An organic approach of person to person characterizes their search for truth that they endeavour to keep free and unbiased by nationalistic loyalties. Clément writes to be of service, not only for Muslims that they might understand Christianity better, but also for ‘seekers of God’ in the West and in Russia. Clément sees that for the Christian, relationality is part of the mystery of God, and constitutes the vocation of the created being; he judges that for Christians, the Mohammadan message in Islam has a place in the designs of God in which Christians are called to participate. He wishes particularly to dedicate the book to Christian Arabs of Antioch, among whom he has many friends, but above all he dedicates it to the martyrs of Lebanon, ‘where Christians and Muslims must again learn to love each other anew.’691

Clément’s contribution to the book is divided into two parts: Part One, Clément calls a ‘Little Introduction to Christianity’. In this he expresses his special interest in the Churches of Asia and Africa in the Middle East, which co-existed alongside Islam for many centuries, he also wants to show that these ancient Churches and Christianity in Europe need each other and need to identify with each other.

Christianity is an ‘immense and complex spiritual world’ into which Clément attempts to make some ‘depth charges’ or ‘scalpel cuts’, as he puts it. But his introduction to Christianity is more than a neutral historical exposition; it is a profession of faith. Clément opens his discourse on Christianity with this quotation: ‘What we hold most dear is Christ himself. Christ and all that comes from Him.’692

These words are the reply of staretz John, a fictional character, when the one he is about to declare to be the Antichrist asks, what is the most important thing for him in Christianity? They are taken from the fascinating and prophetic work of Russian Orthodox religious philosopher, Vladimir Soloviev, entitled, A Short Story of the Antichrist.693 The work was written in the year of Soloviev’s death, 1900, on the eve of the terrible, yet largely unexpected, catastrophes of the twentieth century. Soloviev’s eschatological theme predicts forgetfulness of God, the secularisation of Europe, great wars, civil strife and revolutions which would pave the way for a United States of Europe at the end of the twentieth century, and the rise of the Antichrist, who is fascinatingly portrayed as an urbane philanthropist who, while accepting the social, cultural teaching of Jesus, rejects the central message that he is the Son of God, who died, is risen, is alive and active today. Yet Soloviev was optimistic that ethical and humanistic ecumenism would result in the different ecclesial groups being united in diversity. In his story, a parable, the coming of the Antichrist will be preceded by a general apostasy, but three men remain to reject the Antichrist, Peter II (Catholicism), the Elder John (Orthodoxy), and Professor Pauli (Protestantism). At a Council called by the Antichrist, their stand in fact does lead Christianity to a final unity.

In a Lenten retreat talk given by Giacomo Cardinal Biffi to John Paul II and the Roman Curia in March 2000, the cardinal took as his theme, ‘Soloviev and Our Time’, based on Soloviev’s A Short Story of the Antichrist. Biffi describes

692 _{Clément, Un Respect Têtu, p. 115. See also Clément’s footnote 1, p. 121: V Soloviev, Trois}

Entretiens, trans. French (Paris: 1984), p. 212.

693 _{Vladimir Soloviev, Russian philosopher and poet was born January 1853 and died in 1900,}

aged 47. His last book, a fictional work, Three conversations on War, Progress, and the End of History, was translated and published in France in 1984. Soloviev contributed significantly to the Russian spiritual renaissance at the beginning of the twentieth century. See also Gio Piovesana e Michelina Tenace, L’Anticristo: con la traduzione del saggio di Solov’ëv (Rome: Centro Aletti, Pontificio Instituto Orientale, 1995).

Soloviev as a ‘friend of truth and an enemy of ideology’.694

John Paul II who had previously been unaware of the story, was deeply moved by it.695 Hans Urs von Balthasar regarded Soloviev’s work as ‘the most universal, speculative creation of the modern period’,696

and accorded Soloviev, who is sometimes referred to as ‘the Russian Newman’, a similar level of recognition as St Thomas Aquinas. Biffi later delivered a Lenten meditation to Pope Benedict XVI on the same theme in 2007, which the pope cites in his book, Jesus of Nazareth.

This notion of religious ideology as a destructive force is one that recurs in Clément’s discourse; Soloviev’s religious philosophy can be seen as foundational to the creative thinking of the Russian Orthodox theologians of the Diaspora, and therefore to Clément. Christianity cannot be reduced to a set of values, being a Christian involves a personal encounter with Christ; solidarity, peace, respect for nature are relative values which, if they are seen as absolute, can become

ideological idolatries. Soloviev’s book was published in France in 1984, and again resurfaced in Russian theological circles after the breakup of the Soviet Union as a way to a new Russian philosophy. It is therefore both foundational in Clément’s Orthodoxy and significant in his analysis of ecumenical and interfaith dialogue at the time he collaborated with Talbi in their dialogical book published in 1989.

2.4.iv Interfaith dialogue: Triune relationality – the Christian starting