Name Marc Boegner | Role Essayist | |
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Died December 18, 1970, Paris, France Books Traduction œcumenique de la Bible, The long road to unity | ||
Marc Boegner, commonly known as pasteur Boegner ([pastœʁ bœne]; 21 February 1881 – 18 December 1970), was a theologist, influential pastor, notable member of the French Resistance, and a French essayist, and a notable voice in the ecumenical movement.
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Biography
Marc Boegner was the nephew and disciple of the Lutheran pastor Tommy Fallot, who founded Social Christianity in France. Born in Epinal, Vosges in 1881, Boegner was educated in Orleans, and later Paris, where he studied law. Poor eyesight was an obstacle to his pursuit of a career within the navy but after a spiritual conversion experience he entered the Faculty for Theology in Paris and in 1905 was ordained a pastor of the Reformed Church of France. After having been a Protestant pastor in a rural parish in Aouste-sur-Sye in Drome, in 1911 he became professor of theology at the House of the Missions of Paris, and in 1918 went on to the Parish of Poissy-Annonciation where he remained until 1952. In 1928, he inaugurated the sermons of Protestant Lent on the radio, which contributed to his notoriety. There he preached on the unity of Christians. In 1929, he became the first president of the Protestant Federation of France (Federation protestante de France), a position he held until 1961. In 1938 he became the first president of the national council of the Reformed Church of France (l'Eglise reformee de France), a post he held until 1950. He was on two occasions the professor at the Academy of International Law at The Hague. Between 1938 and 1948 he was president of the administrative committee of the provisional World Council of Churches in formation. After the council had been formed he became one of its co-presidents, a post he held until 1954.
Boegner actively worked, during the occupation, in an open way as well as clandestinely, to try to improve the lot of the Jews, and even defended and saved a number of them. His compassion extended also to many political refugees. He intervened with Pierre Laval, in vain, to ask him to give up including Jewish children younger than 16 years in the deportation convoys. In 1943, he condemned the forced sending of workers to Germany under the STO. Against violence and the armed struggle, he let his faith and conscience choose against joining the Maquis in an early stage. His action to help the Jews during the war made him be awarded the Righteous among the Nations in Yad Vashem in 1988.
Having met six times, in the middle of his resistance work, Marshal Philippe Petain, he was decorated with the Order of the Francisque and was named a member of the National Council of Vichy. He remained, at the time of his questioning in the Allied lawsuit against the old leader, on July 30, 1945, to testify for the good intentions and the goodwill expressed by Petain in the difficult circumstances of France - a lenient idea of Petain's actions, today contradicted by authors and some historians.
After the war, he continued his fight for unity while taking part in the ecumenical movement (mouvement œcumenique). He was also a Protestant observer during the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) during which he staged a public dialogue with Cardinal Bea in Geneva. He also met Pope Paul IV. The ecumenical movement is the subject of his last book published in 1968 (The Long Road to Unity, Eng. trans. 1970).
Boegner died in Paris.