Father Sophrony and the Benedictine monks of Saint-Wandrille:

This article focuses on the relationship between Father Sophrony Sakharov, an Orthodox monk and disciple of Saint Silouan the Athonite, and the Benedictine community of the Abbey of Saint-Wandrille. Dom Silouan Caffet, himself a Benedictine monk, offers a personal and well-documented account of these inter-confessional exchanges. The central idea is that of a spiritual fatherhood that transcends confessional boundaries: Father Sophrony exercised a real and profound influence on monks of the Latin obedience, in a spirit of mutual respect and monastic fraternity. On the theological and historical level, the article highlights the ecumenical significance of Silouanian spirituality and illustrates how the Athonite hesychast tradition was able to enrich Western monastic life in the twentieth century, thus constituting a concrete testimony to the rapprochement between the two great Christian monastic traditions.