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Home | Centuries | The 19th century - The Protestant community | Progress towards unity
Progress towards unity
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At the beginning of the 20th century, the need for unity was felt by different churches, and eventually led to the foundation of the Fédération protestante de France in 1905.


First steps towards ecumenism

Various Reformation movements lasted until the beginning of the

20th century. After the Concordat had been abrogated, the unofficial Reims synod in May 1905 decided to call up a general Assembly of the Reformed Churches, which never took place. To avoid a definite schism between the two main groups which seemed unavoidable at the Montpellier synod in 1906, a few pastors, including Wilfred Monod, called for an Assembly to define unifying strategies. The meeting took place at Jarnac in October 1906, and the outcome was a declaration prepared with the help of Charles Wagner and Wilfred Monod. However the Jarnac meeting failed because the outcome was yet another national Union of the Reformed Churches, the third one -generally called the « Union de Jarnac- and was formalised the following year at the Paris Synod.

Go to top Thus was French Protestantism constituted of 3 Church Unions :
  • The Union of reformed Evangelical Churches : the most numerous, comprising 440 churches and 410 pastors.
  • The Union of united Reformed Churches (former liberal churches), comprising 100 churches and 120 pastors.
  •  The National Union of Reformed Churches (called the Jarnac Union) comprising 80 churches and 100 pastors.

There were also about fifty so-called autonomous churches. The Jarnac and liberal trends merged in 1912 under the name Union of Reformed Churches.

Go to top The Fédération Protestante de France

But the need to be united to confront the public authorities, the evolution of the doctrine, the influence of both pastors Wilfred Monod and Elie Gounelle among others, led to the creation of the Fédération Protestante de France comprising the Reformed (evangelical, liberal, independent), the Lutherans, the Methodists, at Nîmes in October 1905, to be joined by the Baptists in 1919.

Bibliography
Book
MONOD, Wilfred, Pour l'Unité protestante, Paris, 1932
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Methodism
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