The Song of Tears

by Olivier Clément

"A remarkable interpretation of the Bible unfolds throughout the Great Canon.... Originally the Great Fast was a preparation for Christian initiation, the death-and-resurrection with Christ that was conferred during the Paschal night. Each day... the bishop would give a biblical catechesis in which the literal and spiritual meaning fitted each other, and in which the entire Bible was interpreted as being the encounter of the two Adams, as one vast parable of the Prodigal Son. These efforts to understand were inseparable from a committed asceticism—as they still should be—for one must approach Scripture with an intelligence that is purified, heart and mind united. Traces of this primitive catechesis survive in the hymnography of the Triodion, particularly in Saint Andrew’s Great Canon. Eight of its nine odes consist, in the main, of a 'metanoic' [i.e., repentant] rumination on the Old Testament, with the grace of the life-giving Cross appearing not just in the typology but directly in the final troparia of each ode before coming into its own in the ninth, which is entirely devoted to it. In this way, the Bible becomes the story of humanity, the story of the 'total Adam,' of the 'single Man,' as the Fathers put it, and consequently of my story. Not in the sense that I should turn the Bible into a game of pietistic allegories so as to express the various states of my soul. Rather, in the sense that I am wrested from my smug or dreary individuality and discover that I am “consubstantial” with the heart-rending experience of all men.... [O]ur fallen state is not something closed in on itself. Despair turns into hope. Someone has descended into our hell to make light shine in it." —Olivier Clément

113 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 27, 2021

About the author

Olivier Clément was a French theologian and convert to Orthodox Christianity who taught at St. Sergius Institute in Paris.

He was born in 1921 in the south of France. In his youth he was a non-believer. As he grew to maturity, he became influenced by a number of Orthodox theologians in France, notably Vladimir Lossky and Nicholas Berdiaev, eventually receiving baptism at the hands of Fr Evgraph Kovalesvky, later Bishop Jean-Nectaire of Saint-Denis.

Although a committed school teacher, Clément was most devoted to his work at the St Sergius Institute and to his writing. His work was wide-ranging — from poetry to literary criticism, philosophy to theology, and extended to book-length interviews with figures such as Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras and one of his successors, Bartholomew.

The most widely distributed of Clément's many books was perhaps his introductory work on the Orthodox Church in the popular Que sais-je? series, first published in 1961 and now in its seventh edition.

Clément also enjoyed friendship and entered into dialogues on major spiritual themes with a number of imminent personalities including Patriarch Athenagoras, Pope John Paul II, the priest and theologian Dumitru Staniloae, and the brother Roger of Taizé.

Modest, kindly and balanced, and supported faithfully by his wife Monique, Clément worked selflessly to unite Christians of different backgrounds, to unite France’s various Orthodox communities, and to inspire readers and listeners with a love of the Orthodox tradition which, he believed, would enrich the whole Church.