A lecture by Mgr Henri Teissier, Archbishop Emeritus of Algiers, will be held on Saturday at 10.30am at Mount St Joseph, Tarġa Gap, Mosta. It is being organised by the Fondation de Malte, in cooperation with the Alliance Française Malte-Mediterranée.

Born in 1929 in Lyon, France, Teissier studied for the priesthood in France, but during his period of formation spent some time in different parts of North Africa, where his father, a military man, rendered service to the various French colonial governments then ruling the Maghreb.

He was ordained priest by Cardinal Duval in Algiers in 1955. Apart from his philosophical and theological studies at the Institut Catholique in Paris, Teissier followed courses in Arab culture at the Sorbonne.

Back in Algeria in 1958, he started his pastoral work in an Algiers parish. Working closely with Cardinal Duval, Teissier shared the prelate’s conviction that, when in 1962 most French residents left Algeria as the country gained independence from France, the Church should stay on, transforming its erstwhile colonial structure into one befitting an officially-recognised Church by a State whose religion was Islam. With Duval, Teissier became an Algerian citizen in 1964.

Teissier will be sharing not only the rich Augustinian and Christian heritage of North Africa, but also the travails of Christianity not just surviving but blossoming in a Muslim context.