Taize Community Carves Out Its Niche

Snuggled against a hillside in this tiny Burgundy village is a church without a doctrine, a fraternity of monks without a church and a powerful idea that draws tens of thousands of young pilgrims each year.

The leader of the Taize Community, founded 46 years ago during World War II, is Brother Roger, a 71-year-old Swiss Protestant who has consulted or advised heads of the Roman Catholic Church since Pope Pius XII. The current pontiff, John Paul II, will visit Taize during his Oct. 4-7 trip to France.

About 80 brothers from 20 nations, both Catholic and Protestant, form the nucleus of the community, whose aim is to reconcile the entire human family and overcome the divisions among Christians through common prayer.

The brothers belong to no other religious orders, and the community is affiliated with no organized church, refuses to allow a formal movement to be created around it and accepts no funding from outside sources. Rare excess money is given away. The simple program is prayer, discussion groups and silence.

Bells call the visitors to prayer morning, noon and night. Most are 17 to 25, though many are older. They stream silently or conversing quietly toward the modern Church of the Reconciliation from blue dormitory tents that dot the hillside, from trailers in a nearby park or from the spartan rooms in the few residences.

“We didn’t ever want it,” said Brother Roger of the pilgrims who began to trickle in during the late 1950s, disturbing the contemplative life of the brothers. But as the numbers grew, the community made them welcome. Now, in the height of summer, as many as 2,000 people a week come to this village.

Roger Schutz, a Swiss clergyman’s son, was 25 and fresh from university studies in Lausanne and Strasbourg when he pedaled his bicycle into Taize in the summer of 1940, just after the Germans defeated France and occupied its northern half.

The run-down house and outbuildings he bought for what he hoped would be a life of contemplation and prayer were just one mile inside the free zone controlled by the Vichy government. He quickly became involved with political refugees and Jews fleeing the Nazis.

In November, 1942, while helping a group of escapees cross into Switzerland, he was betrayed back in Taize and forced to remain in Geneva until 1944, when France was liberated. Five years later, the first seven brothers took monastic vows of celibacy, community of property and prayer.

Services are multilingual and universal. Chilling “Taize chants” seem to seep from the church and float over the isolated site.

It was only in 1969 that the Catholic Church allowed its adherents to become brothers in the Taize Community. Today, the brothers will not say how many of them are Catholic or Protestant.

“We don’t want to define ourselves in those terms,” says Brother Leonard, a Dutchman who came here in 1963. “We want to find an identity in a future one church . . . .

“It is a little bit of an uncomfortable position because we are working for a reconciliation of churches, but we can’t really allow ourselves to be officially recognized by Catholic or Protestant institutions because the basis of those institutions is to defend themselves.”

No one understands exactly how the pilgrimage developed. But as the numbers increased, so did the facilities to welcome them. Frequently, young people want to stay and join the community, but the brothers prefer to send them home to work in their own churches. Two or three new members are accepted each year for a four-to-five-year introductory period.