In the 10th century onward, church builders in the Auvergne region of France lacked access to marble and limestone, so they made the most of the volcanic stone available to them.
The rich variety we observe in church choices used to mean that ecumenism was an obvious project, though enthusiasm for it seems to have waned since the initial optimism of the early 20th century
Vladimir Lossky's diary, on the road to joining the French Army in 1940, reveals an intimate portrait of the famous theologian, barely revealed in his academic writing.
Cultural travelogues usually try to pick up a whiff of some hidden rustling in the midst of fragments. Here I see only subdued disjunctions; I smell only the dust from ground trampled by the world, as it barrels along under a sky of forgetfulness.
