Roland de Pury

Roland de Pury (born November 15, 1907 in Geneva , † January 24, 1979 in Aix-en-Provence ) was a Swiss Protestant pastor . During the Second World War he stood by numerous Jews in Lyon , where he was pastor . From the beginning he turned against National Socialism , which he fought on a spiritual level and through his courageous advocacy for the Jews. He was committed to upholding human rights throughout his life .

Studies

After graduating from high school , Roland de Pury studied literature at the University of Neuchâtel in Neuchâtel . After completing his studies, he toyed with the idea of ​​becoming a writer. Due to an internal conversion , he began to study Protestant theology . In 1932 he studied in Bonn with Karl Barth , whose pupil he became. Together with his friend Denis de Rougemont , Roland de Pury founded the French Protestant magazine Hic et Nunc , which appeared for the first time in November 1932. Hic et Nunc was strongly influenced by Karl Barth's theology and made it known in France .

Spiritual resistance and help for Jewish refugees

In 1938 Roland de Pury left his pastor in a Reformed parish in the Vendée department and moved into the rectory in rue de la Lanterne in Lyon . Together with his wife Jacqueline , he helped persecuted Jews to leave France and enter Switzerland since 1940. He was one of the spiritual leaders who denounced Nazi racial ideology . In a sermon delivered on July 14, 1940, he clearly rejected Nazism , Marshal Pétain, and the collaboration of the French state with the National Socialist German Reich . In that sermon, de Pury spoke about the seventh commandment, “You shall not steal,” and it was one of the first acts of Christian resistance in France. In September 1941 Roland de Pury worked on the Thèses de Pomeyrol, which from a theological point of view rejected Nazism and the persecution of Jews. These theses were based on the Barmer Theological Declaration , which had largely been drawn up by Karl Barth and which was adopted at the end of May 1934 at the first Synod of Confessions . After the German armed forces occupied the southern zone of France in November 1942, the Gestapo established itself in various locations in Lyon. The Germans quickly noticed that Jewish refugees were secretly visiting the rectory on rue de la Lanterne. Roland de Pury was then arrested during a church service and taken to the fortress of Montluc , which the Germans used as a prison. During his several months in prison, he wrote his cell diary ( Journal de cellule ). He was exchanged for German spies who had been arrested in Switzerland and then fled to Neuchâtel with his family. After the war he returned to his parish in Lyon.

post war period

After the war, Roland de Pury began an intensive literary career. In the 1960s and 1970s he became a missionary and stayed in Cameroon and Madagascar , among others . He raised his voice against colonization and denounced the torture in the Algerian war . In 1976 Roland de Pury and his wife Jacqueline were awarded the honorary title Righteous Among the Nations by the Yad Vashem Memorial . Roland de Pury died in 1979.

bibliography

• Journal de cellule, 30 May - 20 October 1943, Lausanne, 1945, La Guilde du Livre

swell

• Roland de Pury on the Protestantism Wiki
• Article in the newspaper “Réforme” n ° 3247 of November 15th 2007

The text is based in part on the article by Isabelle Stucki: Le pasteur Roland de Pury, précurseur de la résistance chrétienne, in "Le Courrier" of November 15, 2007 [1]

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Roland de Pury on the website of Yad Vashem (English)

Web links

• Literature by and about Roland de Pury in the catalog of the German National Library