Toward the Endless Day: The Life of Elisabeth Behr-Sigel

4. The Radiance of Maturity, 1980–2005

ch apter 4 THE RADIANCE OF MATURITY, 1980–2005 For Elisabeth, the death of Fr. Lev marked the end of a restless period in her life, which had been dominated by the unpredictable reactions of the monk toward her. His demise led her to experience another kind of relationship, exempt from all the shadows of misunderstandings , thanks to which she felt him close to her. During the 1980s, Elisabeth seemed to have arrived at that “calm haven” that Fr. Lev had desired for her. Her incisive and prickly personality , sometimes irritating when she was obsessed with defending certain opinions at all cost, seemed to mellow little by little, leaving room for an affability that made her more attentive and open to others. Although the wrinkles of old age etched themselves on her broad, thoughtful forehead, Elisabeth’s piercing blue eyes shone with 233 goodness without losing any of their sparkle and vivacity. Aside from a few warning signs of certain health problems, notably cancer in 1967, the septuagenarian seemed to have an iron constitution, swimming whenever she could, enjoying a cigarette, drinking black coffee in the evening because it gave her, as she explained, “the energy to go to sleep.” With her new youthful enthusiasm, Elisabeth did all she could to transmit the richness of her experience while remaining astonishingly attentive to the changes in the world around her. “I’m a sort of estuary,”1 she said, indicating with a sweep of her hand the piles of books and magazines that cluttered her little apartment in Épinay. Most of the religious publications of the period found their way to her mailbox and enabled her to keep up to date on what was going on. She was also kept informed through her voluminous correspondence , which took on a great deal of diversity as she made new friends in the course of her travels. Having acquired an international reputation , Elisabeth was now invited to different points of the globe to give lectures or series of classes, either on the specific theme of the place of women in the Church or on more traditional theological questions. Thanks to her spirit of openness and the solidity of her erudition, she possessed the art of transmitting the fundamental aspects of Orthodox theology through a personal approach that showed that this theology had been integrated into her own life. From One Continent to Another, 1983–1984 Tantur, 1983, 1984 In 1983, thanks to a proposal to give a new series of classes, Elisabeth was able to return to the Holy Land, for which she had so many dazzling memories after her pilgrimage there in 1965. She agreed to give courses at the Ecumenical Institute of Tantur, situated between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. This center of theological research had been founded in 1972 at the request of Pope Paul VI, who wanted to commemorate his historic meeting with Patriarch Athenagoras at Jerusalem in 1964. Subsidized by the University of Notre Dame, not far 234 The Radiance of Maturity, 1980–2005 from Chicago, the Institute enabled theologians of different denominations to take a common approach to questions of faith. “The concept of the Institute is founded on the conviction that, by living and studying together, a community of men and women of diverse doctrinal and liturgical traditions can contribute to hastening the advent of a full ecclesial communion.”2 Exegete Oscar Cullman, who had been Elisabeth’s professor at the Protestant Faculty of Strasbourg, took part in the creation of the center and doubtless played a part in Elisabeth’s invitation. From March to April 1983 she led a weekly seminar on her favorite topic, women in the Church, as well as a public course entitled “Some Aspects of the Theology and of the Experience of the Holy Spirit in the Orthodox Church.” This conference drew on recent interventions she had made in ecumenical circles concerning the theology of the Holy Spirit. She retraced the historic evolution of the Filioque throughout the stages of the schism and its role in the relations between the Eastern and Western Churches. After she developed aspects of Eastern Trinitarian theology, Elisabeth suggested ways of arriving at an understanding with the West by insisting on the importance of finding a common contemporary language when treating of the Filioque.3 Then, in the spring of 1984, she returned to Tantur for a new series of classes. These visits were marked by a...