He could have changed his look or model. The former fashion photographer preferred to give himself a new life. And go from color to black and white. Far from the Parisian hustle and bustle, in the heart of the Cévennes massif, he is now a priest in a monastery. An atypical choice, but well thought out: "You don't become a monk because you don't like the world but because you want to make your life a work of art" .
At the end of a steep road leading to a rocky promontory overlooking the Gardon valley, in Saint-Julien-des-Points, Brother Jean, 73, white beard and black outfit, welcomes visitors to the "skite" (small monastery) de Sainte-Foy with a mixture of patter and severity.
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The sobriety of the stones and schist slate of the former Benedictine priory of the 16th century surrounded by forest and terraced cultures contrasts with the red and blue glow of the icons and the frescoes haloed with gold dust in the Orthodox chapel. The building now depends on the Russian archbishopric in Western Europe.
A gourmet brother Jean
Ordained a priest in 2006, Brother Jean celebrates the services but also cooks delicious meals using products from the organic vegetable garden and orchard. Pilgrims, guests and monks share courgette caviar, ratatouille, squash gratin with haddock and green apple compote with orange blossom on a long wooden table, in the vaulted room decorated with a fresco representing the Last Supper, the last meal of Christ with his apostles.
Accustomed to gastronomic chronicles, having published books of photos and recipes, Brother Jean, assures us that “cooking is a prayer, an art of living and sharing that springs from the heart” , the photo “a writing of light” and the vegetable garden "a way of cultivating its interior lands" .
Brother Jean cultivates his vegetable garden as he cultivates “his interior lands” : with attention, harmony and good humor. SYLVAIN THOMAS / AFP
"He is a character with a unique background, with overflowing creativity!" , comments Guy Benoît, the former mayor of the neighboring village of Sainte-Cécile-d'Andorge (Gard), who remembers “memorable meals” at the “skite” of Sainte-Foy. The place welcomes lambda pilgrims in pain but also celebrities who come to recharge their batteries and create. Star chefs, artists, wine growers, scientists, philosophers ... whose names will not be revealed.
Passionate about metamorphosis
Born in 1947 into a Cévennes family including "pastors and priests" , Gérard Gascuel is passionate about photography and more particularly for "the metamorphosis of faces" during his military service, after seeing a general " suddenly become quite shy in front of the camera and trying to hide his double chin ” .
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After studying at the Louis-Lumière school, he pursued a career between fashion, advertising and the arts, of which he revealed little. “I didn't do anything extraordinary but I met wonderful people , ” he summarizes, citing the painter Salvador Dali, the choreographer Maurice Béjart, the actor Jean-Louis Barreault or the mime Marceau.
His life was turned upside down in 1983, when he was sent by a Japanese newspaper to report to Mount Athos, the “Holy Mountain” of Orthodoxy, on a peninsula in northern Greece. “In the crypt of a ruined church, there on the shelves were skulls of monks. It was a shock , he says. I told myself that I wasn't doing anything with my life. ”
"Laurel and Hardy of Orthodoxy"
To the chagrin of his parents, “the playboy of the family” leaves his profession and his Japanese girlfriend for Mount Athos and a life of “sweet dreamer” , “utopian” . But after a year, he feels "too much comfort" and heads for "one of the hardest places in the world" , the monastery of Mar Saba, in the desert near Bethlehem, in the Palestinian territories. There he met his spiritual father Séraphim, stayed there for several years and was assigned to the kitchen.
Brother Jean found his sidekick in Brother Joseph, a former computer scientist at La Défense in Paris. The two men take care of the monastery together with passion. SYLVAIN THOMAS / AFP
On his return to France, Brother Jean took care of young people in difficulty in Marseille before founding the Fraternité Saint-Martin in 1993. The association brings together French-speaking artists (France, Belgium, Canada, Switzerland ...) but also winegrowers, peasants and artisans who "aspire to share an art of living" .
With Brother Joseph, a former computer scientist who worked for a multinational oil company in a tower of La Défense in Paris and today passionate about the sacred Slavonic song, they created the “skite” three years later, in the isolated mountains of the Cévennes.
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“We are the Laurels and Hardys of Orthodoxy ,” Brother Jean jokes. There is a fat grumpy and a skinny mystic. He is visual and I am auditory, he is cerebral and I am intuitive, together we make a normal monk. " Fortunately for him, Brother Jean did not choose normality to guide his life.