Beyond Distances: The Epistolary Exchange Between Albert Schweitzer and an Italian Hermit

Abstract

Born in Alsace, Albert Schweitzer was geographically and culturally placed at the crossroads of different religious denominations. His cousin would become the mother of Jean-Paul Sartre, and in the church where his father, a Lutheran pastor, preached, both Catholic and Protestant rites coexisted. Schweitzer himself wrote: “From this church open to both rites I derived a great lesson for life: reconciliation (...). The differences between the Churches are destined to disappear. Even as a child, I found it beautiful that in our land Catholics and Protestants celebrated their feasts in the same temple.” This attitude is also reflected in his epistolary exchange with Maria di Campello, an Italian nun and founder of the Community of the Sisters of the Franciscan Hermitage of Campello sul Clitunno. The two never met in person, yet their correspondence stands as a precious testimony to a spiritual vocation striving to overcome denominational, cultural, and national boundaries — uniting Schweitzer's hospital in equatorial Africa with the small hermitage hidden in the heart of Umbria in the 1950s through their shared convictions: reverence for life, care for all living beings, and a religiosity expressed through love for creation, all of which were central to Schweitzer's thought and work.