His father had a successful business that manufactured embroidery items: spun gold or silver yarn, silk thread, braids, fringes and nets, which Victor Carlhian was destined to inherit.

He organized a secular mission in Le Transvaal, a quarter of the 8th arrondissement of Lyon, in which small groups would witness the gospel through social and educational activities, and through prayer.

[1] Carlhian's project was original in the role assigned to the laity, in which a group of lay activists would evangelize in a poor neighborhood through their exemplary attitude, reintroducing the Christian spirit of fraternity.

Carlhian was one of the founders of the Société lyonnaise de philosophie in 1923, which included teachers at state universities and Catholic schools, Christians and non-Christians.

He acquired the Lyon printing house La Source, which published various religious or moral works by authors such as Guillaume Pouget and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.