Lanza del Vasto

Joseph Lanza del Vasto (September 29th, 1901 with San Vito dei Normanni, Italy - January 5th 1981 with Elche of the Sierra, Albacete, Spain), of his true name Giuseppe Giovanni Luigi Enrico Lanza di Trabia, is a Philosophe, a Poète and a Artiste (Sculpture S and Dessin S). He is especially known for the animation of the Communautés of the Arch, which he created on the model of the ashrams of Gandhi.

Lanza del Vasto was an untiring traveller and discoverer, a ground and man of action, man of reflection and philosophy. He was especially a pilgrim, vehement, protestor, prophetic, who crossed his century while launching out in all the epopees that its steps met or caused. He created the Communautés of the Arch which continue its action today and continue to transmit its message.

Influences

In the College Condorcet of Paris, it was interested quickly in the literature: Dante, Hérédia, Virgile, Homère. It is the reading of Romain Roland which woke up its political conscience and made him discover Gandhi.
The discovery of the work of Thomas d' Aquin in 1927 was determining in its search for authenticité.
In 1932, he became the friend of the poet Luc Dietrich.
He was a disciple Occident Al of Gandhi, like convinced to him of the urgency to militate for the interreligieux dialog and the spiritual alarm clock, but also for the ecological action and, especially, the Non-violence.

Biography

His/her father, Don Luigi Lanza de Trabia was sicilian and his/her mother, Anne-Marie Nauts-Oedenkoven had been born with Antwerp. Very early, it went on journeys through Italy and all Europe. It was registered with the Université of Pisa in 1922

Meet with Gandhi

In December 1936, Lanza leaves in India to join Gandhi which he knows by the work of Romain Roland. It spends a few months at Mahatma which names it " Shantidas" (servant of peace) then, in June 1937, goes in pilgrimage to the sources of the Gange in the the Himalayas. There it receives a vision which says to him “Returns and founds! ”

It then leaves India to return in Europe. In 1938, it goes in Palestine, then at the edge of the civil war, with Jerusalem and Bethlehem, “between two lines of tanks”.

It returns to Paris at the time when the Second world war bursts. It publishes several works of Poésie S and, in 1943, the account of its voyage in India the Pilgrimage with the sources , which will be an immense success.

In 1954, it sets out again in India to take part in the non-violent campaigns of Vinoba Bhave.

Foundation of the Arch

It founds the first of the Communautés of the Arch in 1948, which encounters many difficulties first of all.

In 1962, the community settles in the Top Languedoc, with Borie Noble, close to Lodève, on a field in waste land with a bell-tower in ruin.

“The hard order of the Arch” is defined as a gathering of men and women driven by a common will to accept the practice of work and the principle of non-violence. They place of their full liking their confidence as a God, and chose to transform the man for the example. the pronunciation of the wishes and a life rythmée by festivals, prayers and fasts hold an important place.

After the death of the founder, his friend Pierre Parodi takes the community in hand.

Non-violent fights

In 1957, the Guerre of Algeria makes rage, and Lanza launches with other personalities (Général of Bollardière, François Mauriac, Robert Barrat, etc) the protest movement against the Torture. It Fast 21 days.

In 1958, Lanza expresses against the nuclear factory of Marcoule which produces Plutonium for the atomic bomb.

In 1963, he fasts 40 days with Rome during the Concile Vatican II to ask the Pape to give an opinion against the war in general.

In 1972, it supports the peasants of the Larzac against the extension of the military camp by a 15 days fast. In 1974, a community occupies and settles in a farm bought by the army on the plate of Larzac.

In 1976, it takes part in the demonstrations against the Nuclear reactor of Creys-Malville.

As Gandhi Lanza del Vasto extended the concept of nonviolence of respect of the life to the animals. One somebody day crushed a spider in front of him, Lanza del Vasto reacts immediately while saying to him: “Now that you deprived the universe of this life, thus make the spider! ”. Like Gandhi, it was a convinced Végétarien.

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