Jan Grootaers

This article by Jan Grootaers brings together personal recollections and unpublished documents relating to the ecumenical contacts maintained with Archbishop Basil (Krivocheine) of Brussels during the 1960s and 1970s. Adopting an approach of documented testimony, the author traces the joint public initiatives — ecumenical evenings, interviews in the Catholic press — as well as private conversations of which he has preserved detailed accounts. The central idea is that Archbishop Basil, a figure often studied for his patristic theology, was also a clear-sighted and courageous ecumenical actor, capable of nuanced analyses of the Russian Orthodox Church under Soviet pressure, of inter-Orthodox relations, and of dialogue with Rome. The historical contribution of the article lies in the uncovering of previously unknown positions held by the Archbishop: his assessment of the patriarchate of Alexis I, his reservations about Metropolitan Nikodim, and his prophetic views on Uniatism as an obstacle to Catholic-Orthodox dialogue.

This article by Jan Grootaers constitutes a personal testimony about Father Lev Gillet (1893-1980), a major figure of Western Orthodoxy, on the occasion of a commemorative evening organized in Paris. The author, a Belgian Catholic ecumenist, recounts two significant encounters: a stay at St Basil's House in London in 1954, the centre of the Fellowship of Saints Alban and Sergius, and a session at the Ecumenical Institute of Bossey in 1964. Through these memories, Grootaers restores Lev Gillet's ecclesiological thought, particularly his dynamic conception of the laity in the Orthodox Church, founded on the universal priesthood and the active participation of the faithful in the liturgy and the apostolate. The article sheds concrete light on Lev Gillet's role as a mediator between Christian traditions and on his influence in ecumenical circles of the 1950s-1960s, on the margins of official institutions.