Association des Églises Évangéliques Mennonites de France
| Basic data | |
|---|---|
| Official name: | Association des Églises Évangéliques Mennonites de France |
| Membership: | Mennonite World Conference |
| Municipalities : | 31 |
| Parishioners: | approx. 2,030 as of 2018 |
| Address: | Chairman: JR Nussbaumer,
9b Rue de la Vallée, 68220 Leymen |
| Official Website: | menno.fr |
Association des Églises Évangéliques Mennonites de France (in German Association of Evangelical-Mennonite Congregations in France ) is an association of Mennonite congregations in France .
The first Anabaptist communities were formed in Alsace during the Reformation . Strasbourg became a refuge for important Anabaptist reformers such as Pilgram Marbeck and Melchior Hofmann . In the second half of the 16th century, several larger Anabaptist synods were held in Strasbourg . In 1554 about 600 Anabaptists came together in the city.
Most of the Mennonite communities that exist in France today can be traced back to the Swiss brothers ( Frères suisses ) who were expelled from Switzerland in the 17th century . The Anabaptists who immigrated from the Swiss Jura or the Bernese Emmental mainly settled in eastern France. In addition to Alsace, the region around Montbéliard in Franche-Comté is still a focus of Mennonite community work, where some of the communities also have their own cemeteries.
In 1925, the Alsatian Mennonites formed a joint community association with the Conference of Mennonites in Alsace-Lorraine . Before that, the congregations in Alsace had worked with the southern German Mennonite congregations. Linguistic barriers to the communities on the right bank of the Rhine did not yet exist, as the communities in Alsace were still largely German-speaking. Two years later, the Mennonite congregations outside Alsace also founded a conference of Mennonite congregations in French . It was not until 1980 that the two associations merged to form the all-French community association that exists today. He publishes the magazine Christ Seul and runs a children's and retirement home at Valdoie . After the Second World War, a Mennonite meeting center was set up in St. Maurice near Paris with the Center Mennonite de Paris . With the Comité de mission mennonite français, the association also has a Mennonite mission society . Theological training center is the Bienenberg training and conference center ( Center de formation et de rencontre Bienenberg ) in Switzerland, operated together with German and Swiss Mennonites . In addition to trained theologians, lay preachers still play a major role.
In 1984 the French Mennonites hosted the 11th Mennonite World Conference in Strasbourg.
The 12th Mennonite European Regional Conference is planned for 2018 in Montbéliard .
literature
- Diether G. Lichdi: The Mennonites in the past and present. From the Anabaptist movement to the worldwide free church . 2nd Edition. Weisenheim 2004, page 244f.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ See MERK homepage , read on April 4, 2018.