ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, March 30, 1997 TAG: 9703310076
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RICK HAMPSON THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Besieged by extremists in a land beset by insurrection, they died for a relatively new ideal: interfaith harmony.
In the middle of the night, fists pound on a monastery door.
It is 10 days before Easter 1996, in the foothills of the Atlas Mountains in North Africa.
Twenty men with rifles beseech entry, then demand it. They break the latch, rouse seven monks from their straw pallets and gather them in the courtyard.
The invaders are fundamentalist Muslims, determined to overthrow Algeria's secular government. The monks are French Trappists, living in poverty, silence and prayer.
Speaking softly in Arabic, the prior - who knows the Koran almost as well as the Bible - reminds the rebels that Islam protects all houses of prayer.
But this is war, and these are soldiers following orders. There will be no dialogue this time. Grasping small suitcases they have packed for such an occasion, the seven monks are marched out the gate and toward the mountains.
Villagers peering out their windows see captives following their captors.
The prior, Dom Christian de Cherge, sees it differently. He believes they are following Christ.
We know this because two years earlier, as Algeria sank into chaos and terror, Dom Christian had mailed his family a sealed testament, to be opened at his death.
Writing in verse, he predicted a violent death, declared his love of Islam and promised not only to ``forgive with all my heart the man who would strike me down,'' but to see God in the face of this Muslim who would slit his throat.
He began:
If it should happen one day - and it could be today -
that I become the victim of the terrorism that seems ready to engulf
all foreigners living in Algeria,
I would like my community, my Church, my family
to remember that my life was GIVEN to God and to this country.
De Cherge, a descendant of Lafayette and member of a distinguished French military family, came to Algeria three times: as the child of a soldier, in the days when Catholic France ruled Muslim Algeria; as a soldier himself, trying to suppress the Algerian rebellion that erupted in 1958; and as a 32-year-old monk in 1969.
During de Cherge's second stay, his life was saved by a Muslim friend who shielded him in an ambush. De Cherge's belief that the man acted out of religious faith made him reconsider his own. This led him to the priesthood, to the Trappists, and to Rome, where he learned Arabic and studied the Koran.
Then he went home, to Algeria.
At the monastery of Our Lady of Atlas, the monks grew their own vegetables and raised honeybees. They gathered for prayer seven times a day, first upon rising at 2 a.m., and ate but one full meal. They were silent from dusk to dawn, and spoke only when necessary the rest of the time.
As they reached up to God, they reached out to their neighbors. Brother Luke had been the village doctor since his arrival in 1946. The monks shared their vegetable plot, and donated a building in the monastery enclosure for use as a mosque. In the morning, the sound of chapel bells mixed with the Muslim call to prayer.
The monastery also became a place where Christians and Muslims met to pray and talk. Sufi Muslims were regular visitors.
But such contacts became increasingly risky in 1992, when the military canceled elections Muslim fundamentalists seemed likely to win and the latter took up arms. Finally, one faction gave foreigners a month to get out.
On Dec. 1, 1993, the day the month's grace expired, Christian began writing his testament.
Two weeks later, 12 Croatian construction workers - Catholics who often visited the monks - had their throats slit.
That Christmas Eve, the man suspected of the Croats' execution - a young rebel chief named Attya - walked into the monastery with his bodyguards and demanded to see ``the pope of the place.''
Dom Christian greeted the invaders, but quickly cited the Koran: This is a house of peace. If you want to talk, come in. But leave your guns outside.
Attya demanded money, and insisted Brother Luke be sent to the mountains to care for the rebels' wounded.
The monks had little money, Christian said. Luke, who treated all who came to the monastery, was too sick to go to the mountains. The monks would pray for peace, and take no side.
``You have no choice!'' Attya said, according to the monastery's chronicle of the visit.
``Oh, but we do,'' Dom Christian replied.
This is Christmas, he told Attya; you have interrupted our celebration of the birth of the Prince of Peace.
Attya seemed taken aback. ``In that case, please excuse us,'' he said. ``We did not know.''
He shook hands with Christian, but said, ``We shall return.''
Christian had placated Attya, but he had also glimpsed his own death. He finished his testament on New Year's Day and, without mentioning it to anyone, sent it to France.
That January, Luke celebrated his 80th birthday playing for them the cassette he'd been keeping to be used the day of his burial. It was Edith Piaf, singing, ``No, I have no regrets.''
The killing continued throughout 1994 and 1995, claiming scores of foreigners. Tens of thousands of Algerians died, too. One was Attya. The monks heard he bled to death in the mountains after being wounded.
1996 began hopefully. When a Trappist from Rome visited in January, he found the monks in good spirits and calmly anticipating the beginning of Lent.
They celebrated Mass the evening of March 26. The Gospel was John 8:21-30, in which Jesus tells his disciples: ``I am going away, and you will seek me.'' A Muslim-Christian meeting was scheduled the next day, and Luke had two big pots of soup and beans all ready in the kitchen.
Then, as the monks slept, fists pounded on the door, and the promise of Christmas 1993 was fulfilled.
The kidnappers overlooked several monks. After saying their morning prayers, they borrowed a car and drove to the police station.
Detectives and a military escort came to the monastery. One monk, recalling Christian and Attya, refused to allow guns inside.
For a month, nothing was heard of the monks. In Paris, seven candles burned at Notre Dame Cathedral.
On April 27, the rebels demanded that the French secure the release of rebel prisoners - otherwise, ``we will cut the throats of ours.''
They said the monks had forfeited their right to protection: ``They have continued to display their Christian slogans and symbols and to commemorate their feasts with solemnity. They live with the people and draw them away from the divine path, inciting them to follow the Gospel.''
On May 23, the rebels claimed the French had been uncooperative and announced: ``in fidelity to our promise, we have cut the throats of the seven monks. ... Glory to God!''
In Paris, the seven candles at Notre Dame were snuffed out, church bells were muffled and 10,000 people stood vigil.
The monks' heads were found at dawn under a tree on a road outside the city of Medea, not far from the monastery. Their bodies were never recovered.
The monks were buried in the monastery's small cemetery; Christian first, then the others in order of monastic seniority: Luke, Christophe, Michel, Bruno, Celestin, Paul.
It had been raining, but when the monks and the villagers began shoveling earth onto the graves, the sun broke through.
As the monks were leaving, several villagers said they'd tend the graves and watch the monastery. But why were the monks leaving behind their furniture, kitchen equipment and books?
``Because,'' a monk explained, ``someday we are coming back.''
Meanwhile, in France, Christian's family remembered the envelope he'd mailed. They opened it on Pentecost Sunday and found a single piece of paper filled with lines of his small, cramped handwriting.
They were struck by the ending, in which Christian extends his thanks to
you, too, the friend of my final moment,
who would not be aware of what you were doing.
Yes, I also say this THANK YOU and `A-DIEU' to you
in whom I see the face of God.
And may we find each other, happy good thieves in Paradise.
If it pleases God, the Father of us both.
On July 16, the rebel leader widely credited with his execution was reported to have been killed, ousted from power a few days earlier because, in killing the monks, he'd gone too far.
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