Michèle Bordier-Nikitine

This article is devoted to Alla Erofeevna Matheo (1893-1942), a little-known figure of the Russian Orthodox diaspora in France, who died in deportation under the Nazi regime. Michèle Bordier-Nikitine offers a biographical study based on archival documents presented in an appendix. The article sheds light on Alla Matheo's charitable and spiritual commitment, whose work in the service of the poor and refugees is rooted in the Orthodox tradition of the "sacrament of the brother." The central idea is that this woman, comparable to Saint Maria Skobtsova of Paris in the radicalism of her devotion, was unjustly erased from collective memory after the Second World War. From a historical perspective, the article contributes to our knowledge of the religious and social life of the Russian emigration in France, by restoring an individual trajectory emblematic of holiness lived in the ordinary practice of charity.

This article is devoted to Alla Erofeevna Matheo (1893-1942), a little-known figure of the Russian Orthodox diaspora in France, who died in deportation under the Nazi regime. Michèle Bordier-Nikitine offers a biographical study based on archival documents presented in an appendix. The article sheds light on Alla Matheo's charitable and spiritual commitment, whose work in the service of the poor and refugees is rooted in the Orthodox tradition of the "sacrament of the brother." The central idea is that this woman, comparable to Saint Maria Skobtsova of Paris in the radicalism of her devotion, was unjustly erased from collective memory after the Second World War. From a historical perspective, the article contributes to our knowledge of the religious and social life of the Russian emigration in France, by restoring an individual trajectory emblematic of holiness lived in the ordinary practice of charity.