Geneviève Micheli

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Geneviève Micheli (born January 21, 1883 in Paris , † December 7, 1961 in Bern ) was an ecumenically oriented French Protestant who worked in Switzerland. She was co-founder and first superior of the Communauté de Grandchamp .

life and work

family

Geneviève de Lacroix came from a French Catholic noble family on his father's side and an upper-class Alsatian Protestant family on his mother's side . She was the younger sister of the diplomat Léopold Victor de Lacroix (1878-1948). She married the Geneva scholar and librarian Leopold Micheli (1877–1910) in 1902 and had three children. Her son Pierre (1905–1989) became the Swiss ambassador in Paris. Her daughter Geneviève Louise Micheli (1908–1995, also: Geneviève L. Micheli or Louise Micheli, later: Geneviève Marsh-Micheli), with whom she should not be confused, received her doctorate from the Sorbonne in 1939 and made a name for herself as a scholar.

Morges and Grandchamp

After her husband's early accidental death, she turned intensely to religion and in 1913 co-founded the Dames de Morges (Ladies of Morges ), a community of married Protestant women who gathered for spiritual exercises . In 1928 she came into contact with Marguerite de Beaumont (1895–1986), who from 1931 organized a retreat at Grandchamp in Areuse (municipality of Boudry ) in the canton of Neuchâtel , the first under the direction of Micheli.

Paris

From 1930 to 1940 Geneviève Micheli was studying in Paris and got to know the movement of the Veilleurs (guards) around Wilfred Monod , which in 1950 led to the community around Antoinette Butte (1898–1986) in Pomeyrol ( Saint-Étienne-du-Grès ). She also frequented the Catholic circles around Élisabeth de Wavrechin , Lambert Beauduin and Paul Grammont , who were ecumenically oriented.

Convent superior in Grandchamp

In 1944 she followed the call that Marguerite de Beaumont addressed to her to lead the prayer community that had been in Grandchamp since 1936. In 1952 she took perpetual vows with the other sisters. In 1953, the women's community took over the rules of the Communauté de Taizé , with which they had maintained an exchange for a long time, as well as with the ecumenical Catholic priest Paul Couturier from Lyon and the orthodox theologian Paul Evdokimov in Paris.

Fonts

  • Lettre à mes enfants écrite au printemps 1911 à Menton . Les Editions du village épistolaire, Geneva 2017.
  • (with Véronique Laufer) Aux origines des "Dames de Morges" et des "Retraites de Grandchamp" . Morges 2012.
  • Message de Soeur Geneviève Micheli (1883–1961) . Community de Grandchamp, Areuse 1986.

literature

  • Marguerite de Beaumont: You grain à l'épi. Recueil de souvenirs . Ed. Overture, Le Mont-sur-Lausanne. Community de Grandchamp 1995.
  • Soeur Marguerite de Grandchamp: Souvenirs . Community de Grandchamp, Areuse 1975.
  • Michel Cool: Messagers du silence . Albin Michel, Paris 2008, pp. 193–199.
  • Minke de Vries: My life in Grandchamp. Dare the ecumenical adventure . Paulus, Freiburg 2019.
    • (English) The Fruits of Grace. The Ecumenical Experience of the Community of Grandchamp . Wipf and Stock Publishers, Eugene (Oregon) 2017, pp. 7-9.
  • Une vocation de femme. Geneviève Micheli. Journée commémorative du 7 août 1994, marquant le cinquantième anniversaire de l'arrivée de Geneviève Micheli à Grandchamp . Editions Ouverture, Communauté de Grandchamp, Le Mont-sur-Lausanne, Areuse 1996.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.persee.fr/doc/bec_0373-6237_1910_num_71_1_461008
  2. ^ Marc Perrenoud: Pierre Micheli. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . February 2, 2012 , Retrieved June 28, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Gottfried Hammann: Marguerite de Beaumont. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . May 6, 2004 , accessed June 28, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Micheli, Geneviève
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Geneviève, Mère
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French Protestant founder of a monastery in an ecumenical spirit
DATE OF BIRTH January 21, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH 7th December 1961
Place of death Bern