Taize founder Brother Roger is murdered
-18/08/05
Messages of sorrow and shock have been pouring in to the ecumenical Taize community in France, after news broke yesterday of the murder of its founder, Brother Roger Schutz, an internationally respected Christian peacemaker.
The 90-year-old monk died on Tuesday at Taize’s base in the hills of eastern France. According to eyewitness accounts, he was stabbed in the throat three times by a disturbed 36-year-old Romanian woman in front of 2,500 worshippers. Police said onlookers disarmed and detained the woman.
“Many people thought she was a mother going to be next to her child, because there were many children around Brother Roger,” worshipper Alain Duphil told Le Parisien newspaper. “The woman went behind Brother Roger, and some people thought she was strangling him. Someone screamed. A monk and a young man grabbed her.”
Taize is an international centre of worship, reconciliation and inter-Christian commitment. It was founded by brother Roger, a Swiss Protestant, and a group of associates after 1940. The religious order he set up stresses simple lifestyle, economic sharing and pacifism.
Hundreds and thousands of people, especially the young, have visited the community over the years. Its liturgy and songs, which draw on traditional chant, are used by millions across the world ñ Catholics, Anglicans, Protestants, evangelicals and charismatics.
After the start of the second world war, the small village of Taize, close to the demarcation line that divided the portions of France controlled by German forces and by the French Vichy government, was chosen as the community’s base because it was strategically located for welcoming refugees. This included Jews hiding from the occupying Nazis.
Warned that German forces were aware of their activities, Roger and his sister, Genevieve, left in Autumn 1942 but returned in 1944. Meanwhile, others joined the new order. Today over 100 brothers from more than 25 nations, Catholic and Protestant, are community members.
Church leaders from all traditions, including Orthodox metropolitans, have visited Taize over the years. Pope John Paul II was a particular friend of Brother Roger and his work. His successor, Benedict XVI was in correspondence with him only this week.
Three Archbishops of Canterbury have also been to Taize, and yesterday Dr Rowan Williams, spiritual head of the world’s 70 million Anglicans, paid special tribute to the murdered monk.
“Brother Roger was one of the best loved Christian leaders of our time,” said the archbishop. “Hundreds of thousands will be feeling his loss very personally, and remembering him in prayer and gratitude.”
He added that “the shock and trauma for the community at Taize will be [especially] heavy ñ and it will be for all the young people who witnessed this event. All of them are in our prayers.î”
The Rev Judith Maizel-Long, assistant general secretary of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, described brother Roger as a “pioneer ecumenist”. She said that he was “an encourager of young people”, and that his name was “central to the story of ecumenism and evangelism in Europe in our era.”
Simon Barrow, co-director of the UK Christian think tank Ekklesia, said that “at a time when religion is in the news for many negative reasons, Brother Roger and the Taize community have shown what a forward-looking yet traditional commitment to the Way of Jesus can really mean. It is a path of gentle, radical transformation, socially and spiritually.”
Brother Roger Schutz’s many books include God is Love Alone and Sources of Taize.
Taize founder Brother Roger is murdered
-18/08/05
Messages of sorrow and shock have been pouring in to the ecumenical Taize community in France, after news broke yesterday of the murder of its founder, Brother Roger Schutz, an internationally respected Christian peacemaker.
The 90-year-old monk died on Tuesday at Taize’s base in the hills of eastern France. According to eyewitness accounts, he was stabbed in the throat three times by a disturbed 36-year-old Romanian woman in front of 2,500 worshippers. Police said onlookers disarmed and detained the woman.
“Many people thought she was a mother going to be next to her child, because there were many children around Brother Roger,” worshipper Alain Duphil told Le Parisien newspaper. “The woman went behind Brother Roger, and some people thought she was strangling him. Someone screamed. A monk and a young man grabbed her.”
Taize is an international centre of worship, reconciliation and inter-Christian commitment. It was founded by brother Roger, a Swiss Protestant, and a group of associates after 1940. The religious order he set up stresses simple lifestyle, economic sharing and pacifism.
Hundreds and thousands of people, especially the young, have visited the community over the years. Its liturgy and songs, which draw on traditional chant, are used by millions across the world – Catholics, Anglicans, Protestants, evangelicals and charismatics.
After the start of the second world war, the small village of Taize, close to the demarcation line that divided the portions of France controlled by German forces and by the French Vichy government, was chosen as the community’s base because it was strategically located for welcoming refugees. This included Jews hiding from the occupying Nazis.
Warned that German forces were aware of their activities, Roger and his sister, Genevieve, left in Autumn 1942 but returned in 1944. Meanwhile, others joined the new order. Today over 100 brothers from more than 25 nations, Catholic and Protestant, are community members.
Church leaders from all traditions, including Orthodox metropolitans, have visited Taize over the years. Pope John Paul II was a particular friend of Brother Roger and his work. His successor, Benedict XVI was in correspondence with him only this week.
Three Archbishops of Canterbury have also been to Taize, and yesterday Dr Rowan Williams, spiritual head of the world’s 70 million Anglicans, paid special tribute to the murdered monk.
“Brother Roger was one of the best loved Christian leaders of our time,” said the archbishop. “Hundreds of thousands will be feeling his loss very personally, and remembering him in prayer and gratitude.”
He added that “the shock and trauma for the community at Taize will be [especially] heavy – and it will be for all the young people who witnessed this event. All of them are in our prayers.'”
The Rev Judith Maizel-Long, assistant general secretary of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, described brother Roger as a “pioneer ecumenist”. She said that he was “an encourager of young people”, and that his name was “central to the story of ecumenism and evangelism in Europe in our era.”
Simon Barrow, co-director of the UK Christian think tank Ekklesia, said that “at a time when religion is in the news for many negative reasons, Brother Roger and the Taize community have shown what a forward-looking yet traditional commitment to the Way of Jesus can really mean. It is a path of gentle, radical transformation, socially and spiritually.”
Brother Roger Schutz’s many books include God is Love Alone and Sources of Taize.