by His Grace Bishop Maxim (Vasiljevic)

Paris is not merely a place, it is also a “way of life,” said the Athenian theologian and philosopher Christos Yannaras. And the way of life is always the result of how (the manner in which) things exist. At the onset of this millennium, Catherine Dolez, a professor at the Alliance Française, persistently argued that the term laïcité has became a necessary complement to a tripartite motto liberté, égalité, fraternité, while I endeavored to make her consider koinos logos (Heraclitus’ “general, common cause”) as fundamental for the essential identity of the polis. How can a city be called a city unless it has a constant point of reference that brings all to the same place? In response, she wrote an entire essay on the back of my notebook claiming that the identity of Paris is exactly based on the absence of an underlying logos. On April 15, 2019, it turned out that this city nevertheless does have the fundamental point of reference that makes it coherent: a deep attachment to Notre-Dame de Paris. It was expressed unexpectedly, for a moment only, but quite strong enough to point to that forgotten way, un véritable mode d’existence. The French watched in horror as their magnificent and emblematic cathedral of Our Lady of Paris burned before their very eyes. They were scared of losing their own selves, their identity. The fire caught the Virgin’s hair, but, fortunately, it did not consume it. That fire, though, came at just the right time. Continue reading →