BEAUDUIN, LAMBERT

Liturgist; b. Rosouxlez-Waremme, Belgium, Aug. 5, 1873; d. Chevetogne, Jan. 11, 1960. Beauduin studied at the minor seminary of Saint-Trond, then at the seminary of Liège, where he came under the influence of Abbot Pottier, founder of the École Sociale de Liège. Beauduin was ordained in 1897 and rejoined the Aumôniers du Travail, a society of priests founded to care for workingmen, the next year. In 1906, he became a Benedictine at the Abbey of Mont-César, where he was initiated in the study of liturgy by Dom Joseph Columba marmion. After his religious profession, Beauduin discovered the ecclesial importance of the liturgy while teaching a course in dogma. In 1909, he helped to begin the Liturgical Weeks; in the same year, he began La vie liturgique (since 1911, Les questions liturgiques ). He also wrote La piété de l'Eglise (Louvain 1914) as the manifesto of the liturgical movement.

In 1921, Beauduin was named professor of theology at S. Anselmo in Rome, where he became interested in the Eastern liturgies. Pius XI wanted the Benedictine Order to mediate the work of reunion between East and West. As a result, Beauduin founded the monastery "de l'Union" in Amay (Liège) and the review Irénikon, both in September 1925. At the same time, he joined Cardinal D. J. mercier in the malines conversations. In a memoir of May 25, 1925, Beauduin originated the formula "The Anglican Church united to Rome, not absorbed" which aroused lively reactions.

The bold views of Beauduin in liturgy and ecclesiology shocked many people. In 1928, he had to leave Amay; in January 1931, when he returned from a visit to Bulgaria, he was brought before a Roman tribunal, condemned, and sent to the Abbey of En-Calcat. A retreat that he preached in 1942 was the origin of the future Centre de Pastorale liturgique in Paris. Thus, he became associated with the dominant figures of the Christian renewal in France. He visited numerous Protestants and members of the Orthodox Church, for whom he had sympathy and understanding.

In 1950, Beauduin was able to return to the monastery he had founded. In 1954, his spiritual sons celebrated his 80th birthday with the work L'Église et les Églises (2v., Chevetogne).

When Cardinal Angelo Roncalli, formerly nuncio to France, became Patriarch of Venice, he said: "The true method of working for the reunion of the churches is that of Dom Beauduin." The "condemned" of 1931 had one last joy: john xxiii, the former Roncalli, announced an ecumenical council for reunion in 1958.

Bibliography: o. rousseau, Irénikon 33 (1960) 3–28, 582. r. aubert, Revue Nouvelle 31 (1960) 225–249. t. becquet, Revue Générale Belge (April 1960) 109–117. a. g. martimort, "Dom Lambert Beauduin et le Centre de Pastorale Liturgique," Maison-Dieu, No. 62 (1960) 10–17. s. a. quitslund, Beauduin: A Prophet Vindicated (New York 1973).

[n. huyghebaert]