the unexpected guide of a soldier who became a Bible smuggler

TELL ME if I’m too long! says Philippe Levé with a little laugh, looking up from his worn, highlighted and annotated Bible. If there is one subject on which the soldier is inexhaustible, it is the Bible, and more particularly the Gospel according to Saint Mark. It’s “the simplest, the shortest and the most surprising,” he says. Young retiree, driven by the desire to know if “what (he) believes in holds up”, he returned to university and obtained a canonical license in biblical theology in 2020, following the same training that the seminarians (read box).

Studying the Bible was a “life-changing” experience. “It’s like Narnia’s wardrobe*: we pass by it every day and, one day, we enter and discover an incredible world,” says this parishioner from Fontenay-sous-Bois (Val-de-Marne). He is convinced that we all need to be accompanied to enter into the biblical texts. “Do you know that in the Gospel of Mark, the west of the Jordan represents Israel, and the east, the Gentiles? This completely illuminates the passages where Jesus and his disciples cross to the other side, doesn’t it? » he exclaims, giving us an enthusiastic look.

Reading keys

But not everyone has the means to take “Bible courses” or join a reading group over several months. Philippe Levé therefore offers synthetic presentations of the Gospel of Mark or, more generally, of the Bible. From a forty-minute conference for a chaplaincy to a thirty-hour course, he adapts to requests. Last year, during Advent, around fifty parishioners participated in four meetings to discover the Gospel of Saint Mark.

Sometimes the setting is more informal. The young grandfather recounts how, while passing through the Notre-Dame de Maylis abbey (Landes), a young man asked him to present the gospel to a small group of friends. Then, one of the students in turn brought together around ten friends for a videoconference. “I sow and it will germinate when the time comes,” he says. Noting that a large proportion of Catholics know little about the sacred texts, Philippe Levé wants to make everyone want to open their Bible.

* The Chronicles of Narnia is a series of seven novels by the British writer CS Lewis.

Eight years for a license

A canonical baccalaureate in theology requires five years of post-baccalaureate, full-time study. It can be completed by a canonical license, delivered in two or three years, then by a doctorate.

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