That quote has been seen in practically every mention of the passing of Raimon Panikkar I have run across. I confess, I did cease being a Christian on my way to Buddhism. I never met the man or heard him lecture, but I was introduced to him through the writings of the late Brother Wayne Teasdale, specifically in The Mystic Heart. A particularly insightful piece on the life of Panikkar offers this introduction to his work and fleshes out the above quote informs us:
Panikkar did not confuse or conflate historical contingency with spiritual truth. In Hinduism and Buddhism Panikkar found other languages, in addition to Biblical Hebrew, Greek philosophy, and Latin Christianity, to express the core convictions (the kerygma) of the Christian tradition.
