(RNS) — For the more than 11,040 athletes from more than 200 countries in Paris for the 2024 Summer Olympics, the games are not just one of the most physically intense moments of their lives, but psychologically intense as well, as years of training and hoping may be realized or lost in mere moments. It’s enough to drive a person of faith to pause for prayer or to contemplate the meaning of life.
For these moments, some 120 faith leaders from five of the world’s major religions (and three denominations of Christianity) have taken up residence in their own corner of the village, where they will provide services to the athletes who seek them.
“We have a synagogue, a church, a Buddhist temple, a Hindu temple and more together,” Rabbi Moshe Lewin, one of the Jewish chaplains in the village, told Religion News Service. Lewin, chief rabbi of the three northeast Paris neighborhoods of Le Raincy, Villemomble and Gagny and vice president of the Conference of European Rabbis, said he and other leaders had worked on the chaplaincy project with France’s Interior Ministry for more than a year.
Lewin has served as chaplain for travelers at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport and with the country’s police and gendarmerie, but he said the Olympics is a different beast. “We hold that for the athletes to be in physical form, they have to be in spiritual form,” said Lewin. “We can’t separate the spiritual.”
Several of those serving the village are former athletes themselves. Philippe Gonigam, one of the Catholic chaplains, is a former French hurdling champion, and the Rev. Jason Nioka, a newly ordained Catholic priest, competed in judo in previous Olympics.
As the Olympics is meant to promote unity among nations, there is a strong sense of interfaith collaboration among those ministering to the athletes.
A variety of chaplains available to athletes at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, France. (Photo courtesy of the Rev. Anton Gelyasov, of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of France)
“I can testify that throughout the entire preparation process and now, when we have begun to implement this project, we have been walking hand in hand and with one heart,” said the Rev. Anton Gelyasov, a Greek Orthodox priest from the Metropolis of France. “The official motto of the French Republic is: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. These values are not simply implemented by us, chaplains of various religions; they are something organic and completely normal for us.”
“A lot of times it surprises people to see us walking in the village together, a rabbi, a priest and an imam,” Lewin said.
“The athletes, volunteers, members of official delegations or journalists passing by cast puzzled glances at us: a female Muslim chaplain, a rabbi, a Protestant pastor, an imam, a Buddhist lama, a Hindu, an Orthodox and a Catholic priest are walking together, talking, telling jokes and laughing,” Gelyasov added. “I think this is very important, because we show that we are not competitors, we are not at odds, I would even say that we do not just peacefully coexist — we are brothers and sisters, we are friends!”
Aware, however, that in any international gathering politics bleed through, the religious leaders have taken extra care to counter divisions. The Jewish and Muslim delegation made a point to place their areas right next to each other, in contrast to the divide Jewish and Muslim communities in Europe have felt since the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza after Oct. 7.
“We’re not on a political level, we are on a human level,” Lewin said.
Rabbi Moshe Lewin, right, shows a Torah scroll to Muslim representative Najat Benali, Catholic priest Jason Nioka, left, and other Olympic chaplains in the inter-religious hall at the Olympic Village at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Tuesday, July 23, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
“We, following our religious principle, and preserving the Olympic spirit of peace, accept athletes from any country, we will be glad to (serve) everyone without exception, because for God there are no borders and nations, for him there are only his children,” Gelyasov said.
With the athletes coming from so many different countries and backgrounds, the clergy also had to think about how to make the small space they were apportioned comfortable for all those who would visit.
“In the synagogue, I didn’t know in the beginning where to put what on the walls,” Lewin said. “In the end I decided to put (photographs of) synagogues from all over the world, special and emblematic synagogues. So people will come and see the synagogue of Djerba, the Rome synagogue, Bombay synagogue and others.”
For athletes who visit, they may see a site familiar from their home countries or one in which their ancestors may have prayed.
In the Hindu chapel, “We made many statues, each symbolizing a different deity,” Chaplain Deep Patel told publication La Croix. “We will be able to pray with the athlete, contemplate, meditate and ensure that every trial helps them move forward.”
It’s not just in the village that faith organizations in Paris have gotten to work.
The French Catholic Church has created an outreach program they call “Holy Games,” in which some 70 parishes will welcome visitors to special Masses in a variety of languages, as well as devotions, talks and concerts.
Rabbi Yona Hasky, director of Chabad of the Champs Élysées, the local chapter of the Hasidic movement, is on hand for Jewish tourists who come for the games, though he noted that Paris has drawn significantly fewer tourists of all faiths than the city expected.
“For the Olympics, we expected that there would be a crowd,” Hasky said. “But the reality is, they came but not so much.”
Nonetheless, he is still planning to host a large Shabbat dinner for those who came to his center. While the athletes largely remain in the village, he said that he has already met several family members of the Israeli team who came for services.
“We are here for them. They are coming and we are wishing to serve them,” Hasky said.
