page_title: Brother Roger
section_title: Taizé Community
hierarchical_section_title: Brother Roger / Taizé Community
caption_attribution_description: Brother Roger at a prayer in Taizé
context_page_description: Roger Schütz, popularly known as Brother Roger, was a Swiss Christian leader and monastic brother. In 1940 Schütz founded the Taizé Community, an ecumenical monastic community in Burgundy, France, serving as its first prior until his murder in 2005. Towards the end of his life, the Taizé Community was attracting international attention, welcoming thousands of young pilgrims every week, which it has continued to do after his death.
context_section_description: In 1940, at the start of World War II, Schütz-Marsauche felt called to serve those suffering from the conflict, as his maternal grandmother had done during World War I. He rode a bicycle from Geneva to Taizé, a small town near Mâcon, about 390 kilometres (240 mi) southeast of Paris. The town was then located within unoccupied France, just beyond the line of demarcation from the zone occupied by German troops. He bought an empty house, where for two years he and his sister, Genevieve, hid refugees, both Christian and Jewish, before being forced to leave Taizé, after being tipped off that the Gestapo had become aware of their activities. In 1944, he returned to Taizé to found the Community, initially a small quasi-monastic community of men living together in poverty and obedience, open to all Christians.
  Since the late 1950s, many thousands of young adults from many countries have found their way to Taizé to take part in weekly meetings of prayer and reflection. In addition, Taizé brothers make visits and lead meetings, large and small, in Africa, North and South America, Asia, and in Europe, as part of a “pilgrimage of trust on earth”.
  The spiritual leader always kept a low profile, rarely giving interviews and refusing to permit any "cult" to grow up around himself. Prior to his death, Brother Roger was due to give up his community functions because of his advanced age and ill-health which had seen him suffer from fatigue and often use a wheelchair.
  Brother Roger was a prized author and wrote many books on prayer and reflection, asking young people to be confident in God and committed to their local church community and to humanity. He also wrote books about Christian spirituality and prayer, some together with Mother Teresa with whom he shared a cordial friendship.
caption: Schütz at prayer in Taizé, 2004
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