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Taizé Community
The Taizé Community (French: Communauté de Taizé) is an ecumenical Christian monastic community in Taizé, Saône-et-Loire, Burgundy, France. It is composed of about one hundred brothers, from Catholic and Protestant traditions, who originate from about thirty countries around the world. It was founded in 1940 by Brother Roger Schütz, a Reformed Protestant. Guidelines for the community's life are contained in The Rule of Taizé written by Brother Roger and first published in French in 1954.
Taizé has become one of the world's most important sites of Christian pilgrimage, attracting over 100,000 young people each year for prayer, Bible study, communal work, and shared reflection. Central to its contemplative atmosphere are simple, meditative chants that support prayer and silence. Through these practices, the community fosters ecumenism and reconciliation across diverse Christian traditions. The community's church, the Church of Reconciliation, was inaugurated on 6 August 1962. It was designed by a Taizé member and architect, Brother Denis. Young Germans from Action Reconciliation Service for Peace, created for reconciliation after World War II, assumed the work of building it. Owing to the founder's commitment, since its inception the community has evolved into an important site for Catholic–Lutheran ecumenism. A Catholic, Brother Alois, succeeded as prior after his predecessor's death in 2005. In 2023 Brother Alois announced his resignation and was succeeded by Brother Matthew on 2 December 2023.
The Taizé Community was founded by Brother Roger (Roger Schütz) in 1940. He pondered what it really meant to live a life according to the Scriptures and began a quest for a different expression of the Christian life. A year after this decision, Schütz reflected:
The defeat of France awoke powerful sympathy. If a house could be found there, of the kind I had dreamed, it would offer a possible way of assisting some of those most discouraged, those deprived of a livelihood; and it could become a place of silence and work.
Because his native Switzerland was neutral and thus less affected by the war, Schütz felt as if France would be ideal for his vision, seeing it as a "land of poverty, a land of wartime suffering, but a land of inner freedom." He eventually settled in Taizé, which was a small, isolated village just north of Cluny, the site of a historically influential Christian monastic foundation.
In September 1940, Schütz purchased a small farm house that would eventually become the home of the Taizé Community. Only miles south of the demarcation line that separated Vichy France and the Zone occupée, Brother Roger's home became a sanctuary to countless war refugees seeking shelter. On 11 November 1942, the Gestapo occupied Roger's house while he was in Switzerland collecting funds to aid in his refuge ministry. Roger was not able to return to his home in Taizé until the autumn of 1944, when France was liberated.
In 1941, Brother Roger had published a few small brochures outlining several facets of a Christ-centred communal life together. These brochures prompted two young men to apply, soon followed by a third. They all lived in Switzerland in a flat owned by Roger's family until after the war when they began a new life together in the French countryside. Over the next few years, several other men would join the community. On Easter Sunday 1949, seven brothers committed themselves to a life following Christ in simplicity, celibacy and community.
In the years that followed, others joined. In 1969, a young Belgian doctor became the first Catholic to pledge his life to the Taizé Community. More brothers from Reformed, Anglican and Catholic backgrounds joined the community. Soon the Brothers of Taizé were making trips to take aid to people in both rural and urban areas. They began forming "fraternities" of brothers in other cities that sought to be "signs of the presence of Christ among men, and bearers of joy". Since 1951, the brothers have lived, for longer or shorter periods, in small fraternities among the poor in India (chiefly in Calcutta), Bangladesh, the Philippines, Algeria, Cuba, South Korea, Brazil, Kenya, Senegal, and the United States (chiefly in the Hell's Kitchen section of Manhattan, New York City).
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Taizé Community
The Taizé Community (French: Communauté de Taizé) is an ecumenical Christian monastic community in Taizé, Saône-et-Loire, Burgundy, France. It is composed of about one hundred brothers, from Catholic and Protestant traditions, who originate from about thirty countries around the world. It was founded in 1940 by Brother Roger Schütz, a Reformed Protestant. Guidelines for the community's life are contained in The Rule of Taizé written by Brother Roger and first published in French in 1954.
Taizé has become one of the world's most important sites of Christian pilgrimage, attracting over 100,000 young people each year for prayer, Bible study, communal work, and shared reflection. Central to its contemplative atmosphere are simple, meditative chants that support prayer and silence. Through these practices, the community fosters ecumenism and reconciliation across diverse Christian traditions. The community's church, the Church of Reconciliation, was inaugurated on 6 August 1962. It was designed by a Taizé member and architect, Brother Denis. Young Germans from Action Reconciliation Service for Peace, created for reconciliation after World War II, assumed the work of building it. Owing to the founder's commitment, since its inception the community has evolved into an important site for Catholic–Lutheran ecumenism. A Catholic, Brother Alois, succeeded as prior after his predecessor's death in 2005. In 2023 Brother Alois announced his resignation and was succeeded by Brother Matthew on 2 December 2023.
The Taizé Community was founded by Brother Roger (Roger Schütz) in 1940. He pondered what it really meant to live a life according to the Scriptures and began a quest for a different expression of the Christian life. A year after this decision, Schütz reflected:
The defeat of France awoke powerful sympathy. If a house could be found there, of the kind I had dreamed, it would offer a possible way of assisting some of those most discouraged, those deprived of a livelihood; and it could become a place of silence and work.
Because his native Switzerland was neutral and thus less affected by the war, Schütz felt as if France would be ideal for his vision, seeing it as a "land of poverty, a land of wartime suffering, but a land of inner freedom." He eventually settled in Taizé, which was a small, isolated village just north of Cluny, the site of a historically influential Christian monastic foundation.
In September 1940, Schütz purchased a small farm house that would eventually become the home of the Taizé Community. Only miles south of the demarcation line that separated Vichy France and the Zone occupée, Brother Roger's home became a sanctuary to countless war refugees seeking shelter. On 11 November 1942, the Gestapo occupied Roger's house while he was in Switzerland collecting funds to aid in his refuge ministry. Roger was not able to return to his home in Taizé until the autumn of 1944, when France was liberated.
In 1941, Brother Roger had published a few small brochures outlining several facets of a Christ-centred communal life together. These brochures prompted two young men to apply, soon followed by a third. They all lived in Switzerland in a flat owned by Roger's family until after the war when they began a new life together in the French countryside. Over the next few years, several other men would join the community. On Easter Sunday 1949, seven brothers committed themselves to a life following Christ in simplicity, celibacy and community.
In the years that followed, others joined. In 1969, a young Belgian doctor became the first Catholic to pledge his life to the Taizé Community. More brothers from Reformed, Anglican and Catholic backgrounds joined the community. Soon the Brothers of Taizé were making trips to take aid to people in both rural and urban areas. They began forming "fraternities" of brothers in other cities that sought to be "signs of the presence of Christ among men, and bearers of joy". Since 1951, the brothers have lived, for longer or shorter periods, in small fraternities among the poor in India (chiefly in Calcutta), Bangladesh, the Philippines, Algeria, Cuba, South Korea, Brazil, Kenya, Senegal, and the United States (chiefly in the Hell's Kitchen section of Manhattan, New York City).
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