Archimandrite Lev Gillet “A Monk of the Eastern Church”
1893 – 1980
A French Catholic who met Orthodoxy among Russian prisoners of war, entered the Church in 1928, and became rector of the first French-speaking Orthodox parish in the world.
Louis Gillet was born on 8 August 1893 at Saint-Marcellin in the Isère and studied philosophy in Paris. Taken prisoner in the first months of the First World War, he spent three years in captivity alongside British and Russian soldiers, and it was there — among Russian prisoners, in a prison camp — that he first met the Orthodox tradition that would take the rest of his life.
He became a Benedictine, then a Studite monk under Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky in Galicia, taking final vows as Lev in 1925. Disappointed in his hope that the Catholic Church would meet Orthodoxy on equal terms, he was received into the Orthodox Church at Paris in May 1928, and in November of that year became rector of Sainte-Geneviève-de-Paris, the first Orthodox parish anywhere to serve in French.
In 1938 he moved to London to work with the Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius, the Anglican–Orthodox society, and remained in England for the last forty-two years of his life. He signed his books A Monk of the Eastern Church, and for many years few of his readers knew who he was.
The parish that served in FrenchReadHide
Orthodoxy in Western Europe between the wars was the religion of exiles, served in Slavonic and Greek for people who had lost their countries. Gillet's parish of Sainte-Geneviève was the first anywhere to serve in French — that is, the first to be addressed to the people of the country rather than to those washed up in it.
It was a small and precarious undertaking and it did not make him popular in every quarter. But the principle it established — that the Orthodox Church in Western Europe is a Western European church, in the local language — is now taken for granted from Paris to London to Antwerp, and it began with him.
A Monk of the Eastern ChurchReadHide
The pseudonym was not modesty as a pose; it was a working method. He wanted the books to be received as the voice of the tradition rather than of a personality, and he kept it up for decades.
The books themselves are unusually warm for their period: On the Invocation of the Name of Jesus, which put the Jesus Prayer within reach of Western readers with no monastic context at all; The Year of Grace of the Lord, a walk through the Church's calendar; Jesus: A Dialogue with the Saviour. The recurring theme, and the title under which a later collection appeared, is love without limits.
Historical SignificanceReadHide
Fr Lev Gillet established the principle that the Orthodox Church in Western Europe belongs to Western Europe and prays in its languages — not as a theory but by serving the first French-language Orthodox parish in 1928, when the idea was strange to almost everyone.
Under a pseudonym he then wrote some of the gentlest devotional books the tradition has produced in a Western language, and put the Jesus Prayer into the hands of readers who would never see a monastery. He is not glorified and this page implies no veneration; it records a Frenchman who found Orthodoxy in a prison camp and spent fifty years making it speak his own language.
Timeline6 momentsReadHide
- 1893Born in the IsèreLouis Gillet is born on 8 August 1893 at Saint-Marcellin, France. source ↗
- 1914–17Prisoner of warCaptured in the first year of the war, he spends three years in captivity with British and Russian prisoners and is drawn to the Orthodoxy of the Russians. source ↗
- 1925Studite vows as LevHe makes his final vows at the Studite monastery of Univ in Galicia, taking the name Lev. source ↗
- 1928Orthodoxy, and the first French parishReceived into the Orthodox Church at Paris in May, and in November made rector of Sainte-Geneviève-de-Paris, the first French-language Orthodox parish. source ↗
- 1938To LondonHe moves to England to work with the Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius, and remains there for the rest of his life. source ↗
- 1980ReposeHe reposes on 29 March 1980 in London. source ↗
Works & Further ReadingReadHide
Works by Archimandrite Lev Gillet
- On the Invocation of the Name of Jesus — The book that put the Jesus Prayer within reach of Western readers outside a monastery.
- The Year of Grace of the Lord — A commentary on the Church's calendar, feast by feast.
- Jesus: A Dialogue with the Saviour · Love Without Limits — Published, like the rest, as “A Monk of the Eastern Church”.
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This profile is a historical account compiled from the sources listed and remains subject to clergy and source review.