"He has me handled": accusations of abuse of a former French religious against a priest

"He handled me." In a testimonial book, a former Carmelite nun tells of badual abuse, including rape, accusing a French priest.

These statements are "hope" but "there is a lot to do", according to Claire Maximova, a former sister who told her story in a book, The tyranny of silence.

Claire Maximova Born in Ukraine, he arrived in France at the age of 23 to join a school of evangelism before entering the Carmelites. In a monastery that "suffers", he feels that all his initiatives are limited.

"I was completely crushed, I lost my personality"summarizes the woman.

Maximova then met a a charismatic priest, with whom he finds spiritual support. Until the day he tried to kiss him, he said.

The woman then stopped all contact with the priest, but Two years later, when he found a job abroad, he returns to see him.

Vulnerable, isolated, "I arrived on a plateau," he said. According to his account, he then imposed badual badault, up to the rape, for a year and a half. "Whenever he told me it was the last time."

In your letters "I read what suited me and I closed my eyes to what did not suit me, simply because I did not have a choice"he says.

"To understand that I was under his influence took time"he added, saying he was "manipulated".

& # 39; Castaway & # 39; of the church

In 2017, dismayed by the reaction of the priest's superior to whom he told his story, the woman decided to complain: a preliminary inquiry has been opened, in progress, confirmed at AFP the competent prosecutor's office. The priest and his manager, abroad, could not be contacted on Friday.

He also started a canonical trial, but the former religious has no news. Since then, he whom he designates as his aggressor, whose name he does not reveal in his book, remains a prior, that is to say, a superior of a monastery.

"I gave my life to the church from the age of 15, they expelled me and he, with all that he did, shines under applause, is protected ", regrets.

44 years old, today a teachershe has a lot of trouble going to church and she does not confess anymore.

However you do not see "coming out of the church" where "he lived very beautiful things". "I am a bit like a shipwrecked man swimming around the Titanic and saying" I would have liked to go back up but … "," he describes.

With his book, he wanted to "bring light" to other victims. He wanted to face it naked since, he insists, "it is not me who must be ashamed, it is him".

He also asks that things move. Among the faithful, "mentalities have changed", but although the leaders "begin to say that they became aware, as far as the acts, I do not see anything move".