Remembering Jim Forest

Essays and articles remembering the Orthodox Christian, Writer, and Peace Activist Jim Forest.


No Borders: Remembering Jim

by Nancy Forest

No Borders: Remembering Jim
by Nancy Forest

Shortly after Jim passed away in January 2022, I began the task of designing his gravestone. We had not discussed this beforehand, so it was entirely up to me. The only thing we had decided on was that he and I would both be buried in the Orthodox section of the St. Barbara Cemetery in Amsterdam, a lovely place just a short bus ride from our church.

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Holy Consistency: Jim Forest ‘s Life of Protest and Proclamation 

By Michael Plekon

JIM FOREST

I was grateful to have known Jim Forest. Mostly I corresponded with him. I last was with him at a conference of the Thomas Merton International Society on the hundredth anniversary of Merton’s birth in 2015. This was at Bellarmine University in Louisville, where the Thomas Merton Center is located. 

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The Remarkable Life and Witness of Jim Forest

by Nicholas Sooy

JIM FOREST and Thích Nhất Hạnh

On April 5, 1977, peace activist and author Jim Forest received a phone call that his friend and collaborator Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, an Argentinian peace activist, had been kidnapped by the military dictatorship and was surely being tortured. Adolfo had become a disaparecido, like thousands of others. The most likely outcome was death. From his office in the Netherlands Jim and his staff began working to free Adolfo. 

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Jim Forest The Vocation of a Peacemaker

This is an extract from a talk given by Jim at St Tikhon’s Monastery in June 2003. The talk was later edited by Jim into the essay  “The History and Mission of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship,” available on our website.

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JIM FOREST: A PILGRIMAGE OF FRIENDSHIP

by Robert Ellsberg

In one of our last conversations, Jim Forest and I reflected together on the curious signs and synchronicities that had marked our lives. For Jim, many of these were described in his memoir... Read More


A MEMORY OF JIM FOREST

BY ARNO AKKERMANS

Woman looking at Mount Athos from the sea (photo Nancy Forest Flier)

I was with Jim on Athos. As it would turn out, the only occasion on which we would leisurely spend time together, just the two of us. We were visiting the Holy Mount as part of a larger group of pious parishioners from the somewhat less holy city of Amsterdam, but first...

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Remembering Jim Forest 

By Vincent van Buuren

Remembering Jim Forest 
By Vincent van Buuren

It is hard to believe that on the 13th of January one year had already passed since Jim died, just before the war in Ukraine started on the 24th of February. So often have I thought about what Jim’s reaction to all this would have been. I am not the only one who has often wished Jim was here to talk to.

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JIM FOREST IN MEMORIAM

BY FR ANDREW LOUTH

JIM FOREST IN MEMORIAM

BY FR ANDREW LOUTH

In the Fathers of the Church, from the time of Origen, there is a notion of the ‘spiritual senses’: just as we perceive the physical world through our five physical senses—sight, touch, taste, hearing, smell—so there are, by analogy, five spiritual senses, through which we 0apprehend the spiritual 0world. Origen is the first Christian writer… 

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The Tangerine of Love

by Thirza Buijkx

The Tangerine of Love 
by Thirza Buijkx

Ever since I was a child, I always used to hear stories about some “Jim Forest,” whom my mother respected a lot. I didn’t really know who he was or what he did, but by the way my mother referred to him, I knew he was somebody very special. 

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