Bede Griffiths
Bede Griffiths, born Alan Richard Griffiths, was born in England in 1906. He converted to Catholicism in the early 1930s and soon after joined the Benedictine monastery Prinknash Abbey and took the name Bede. He later served as a Prior of Farnborough and then Pluscardin, during which time he gained an interest in Indian thought. He asked to go to India to set up a monastic foundation, but was denied. Later he was sent to India by the same abbot, but was to serve under the local bishop. From 1955 to1958, he joined Father Francis Mahieu Acharya at Kurisumala Ashram (Mountain of the Cross), where they developed a Syriac rite monastic liturgy. Griffiths took the Sanskrit name Dhayananda, meaning “bliss of prayer.” In 1963, he conducted a trip to the United States in which he engaged in an East-West dialogue.
