Fr Michel Remaud, who served for long years in the Saint James Vicariate, was called by God on the day of Pentecost 2021

On the morning of Pentecost, Sunday the 23rd of May 2021, Father Michel Remaud, a religious belonging to the Congregation of the Sons of Mary Immaculate, died at the Roche sur Yon hospital, in Vendée (France), at the age of 80, as a result of the Coronavirus.

Michel Remaud, the last child of a very Christian family of five children, was born in France on September 28, 1940, in a village of the region Vendée. After studying theology at the French seminary in Rome, he was ordained a priest on July 16, 1966, on the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. After being a professor at the major seminary of Bordeaux, he became chaplain of the students of this same city from 1973 to 1979. He then kept many friendships from this period, and he established, in this same city, his first contacts with the Jewish community that he would frequent assiduously from that day on. In 1973, he wrote a commentary on the bishops' declaration, "The attitude of Christians towards Judaism" and became representant of Aquitaine in the French Episcopal Committee for Relations with Judaism.

In 1979 he arrived to Jerusalem to study there until 1982. From 1982 to 1986 he was the delegate of the diocese of Paris for the relations with Judaism. In 1983, he published his first book “Christians before Israel Servant of God”, a book prefaced by Fadieh Lovsky with whom he developed a friendship and mutual esteem. Both were born on September 28 and, as a wink of the Lord, both died on May 23.

From 1986, even though he still travelled back and forth to France, Michel settled in Jerusalem, teaching first at Ratisbonne Institute, a Christian Center for Jewish Studies. When the Center closed in 2001, he founded with some of his colleagues, in 2003, the Decourtray Institute, a Christian Institute of Jewish Studies and Hebrew Literature which he run until its closure in 2016. In January 1993, after hard years of intensive work, he brilliantly defended his thesis in theology “For the sake of the Fathers” (“À cause des Pères”) at the Catholic Institute of Paris. Then, over the years, he continued to publish works and articles bearing both on the ontological and permanent bond uniting the Church of Christ with the people of the first covenant, and on the way in which the Jewish sources are relevant for the knowledge of the New Testament.

On October 20, 2010, Michel received the Judeo-Christian Friendship Award. In 2016, he returned to his native Vendée, to the motherhouse of his congregation, but he did not remain inactive, continued to write, to give sessions all over France, and even to teach the Jewish reading of the Jewish Scriptures at the Faculty of Theology of Angers. His last work, which will be posthumous, “The Narrative of Emmaus in the Light of the Rabbinic Tradition (Luke 24)”, should be published by Lessius on July 8, 2021.

I, personally, got to know Michel as a student at Ratisbonne in 1987. A fraternity, a friendship that still lasts today because, as a good servant of God who made a good use of his talents, he is certainly welcomed by God, and we remain united in the communion of saints.

For an end, I quote some of the expressions taken from letters sent to inform about his death, "a beautiful pen which rises to heaven and leaves traces", " a righteous life, well accomplished, strong in thought and commitment "," A kind and stimulating presence "," a luminous presence, a sometimes mischievous humor, and an immense love of the tradition that he communicated so well, with a fervor and an enthusiasm that reflected a soul remained young, from the eternal freshness of the Holy Spirit ”,“ a great figure in Judeo-Christian relations, he is considered the best of our theologians in this area ”,“ I had great esteem and affection for Michel. His knowledge of rabbinic texts was remarkable and he will be sorely missed. But beyond his erudition and his understanding of Jewish tradition, it is above all the man and the friend that I will miss. His departure creates a great void. " "Rather reserved, his moving intelligence, his rigorous reflection, his righteousness, his sense of friendship with our dear Jewish and Christian brothers …, a brother who, I believe, will pray, in the grace of the encounter with God".