ecumenical movement, prepared Monday, August 22, to burry its murdered founder. Brother Roger, the Swiss Protestant theologian who in World War Two founded the group in Taizé, eastern France, was killed last week during an evening church service by a woman who was "probably mentally disturbed," the Taizé Community said, ahead of the funeral service which was to be held Tuesday, August 23.
The group stressed she "struck" the 90-year old Brother Roger on August 16, "violently with knife blows" in his throat and that "he died a few moments later."
In statements to media French police said they had taken into custody a 36-year-old woman from Romania who allegedly admitted to stabbing the monk with a knife she bought a day earlier. The woman, whose name was withheld, is to undergo psychiatric examination, police officials added.
NEW LEADER
In remarks on its website, the Taizé community said Brother Alois had become the new leader of the group. "Brother Roger designated Brother Alois to succeed him, as the person in charge of the community. Brother Alois has entered straightaway into his ministry as servant of communion at the heart of the community."
The death of Brother Roger has come as a major blow for especially young people in Europe and elsewhere in the world to whom he reached out during his long ministry.
Although his group of monks – including Lutheran, Anglican, Evangelical, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox members – was seen as creating greater unity among Christian churches, his focus was to awaken Christianity among young people in Europe who were growing up in a secular world.
PRAYER CIRCLES
Before the fall of Communism, he and his group had quietly created prayer circles among Catholics in Poland and Hungary and Protestants in East Germany which church analysts say proved influential during protests in those countries.
"Since 1962, Taizé brothers traveled, at first with great discretion, in the countries of central and eastern Europe, including Hungary, to support Christians there," the Taizé community said. Tens of thousands of young people also gathered in Hungary in late December 2001 for what was one of his last pilgrimages in the former East Block.
The Taizé prayer groups with their message of peace and conciliation have also reached into the United States as well as Canada, Brazil, South Korea, although Europe remained his focus throughout his life.
ABANDONED VILLAGE
It began as a small community in 1940, when than 25-year old came to what was then a semi-abandoned village in Burgundy, the region his mother’s family had originated from. He offered shelter to political refugees, notably Jews fleeing the Nazi persecution, and to work out what he described as "a call to follow Christ in community," that would attempt "to live the Gospel call to reconciliation."
He was joined by his first brothers in 1949, and several of them committed themselves for life to celibacy and to material and spiritual sharing, church experts say.
Brother Roger was born Roger Schutz on May 12, 1915, in Provence, a small town in Switzerland, the son of a Swiss Calvinist pastor and a French Protestant mother. After studying theology at the University of Lausanne, he and a group of friends concluded that it might be possible to avert war in Europe if Christians could unite.
WORLDWIDE REACTIONS
Religious and political leaders across Europe, many of whom had met Brother Roger, have reacted with shock to his violent death and made clear they hope his mission will continue. In published statements Pope Benedict XVI, who knew Brother Roger personally, said he was sad and terrified about the news which "strikes me even more because just yesterday I received a very moving and very friendly letter from him."
The archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, the head of the Church of England, reportedly said that "Brother Roger was one of the best-loved Christian leaders of our time." (Stefan J. Bos currently on assignment in Asia contributed to the story)
