Brother Roger, Protestant Monk and Theologian, Dies

Brother Roger, 90, a distinctly undogmatic Protestant monk and theologian who started a commune and won a worldwide following, was fatally stabbed Aug. 16 during evening prayers at his ecumenical Christian community in eastern France.

Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported that an "apparently deranged 36-year-old Romanian woman" stabbed him. A public prosecutor told the news agency that the woman hoped "to attract [Brother Roger's] attention but not to kill him." About 2,500 people were at the services, in the French Burgundy village of Taize, when the stabbing occurred.

Brother Roger initially settled in Taize to express solidarity with the French living under Nazi occupation. He helped shepherd Jews into Switzerland, which angered the Gestapo and got him expelled from the country.

He returned after the war to care for refugees, and for years lived in relative obscurity with a handful of French and Swiss brothers who vowed celibacy and poverty.

The white-robed Brother Roger disavowed preachiness in favor of plain language, and he borrowed from eastern religions for his meditative chanting sessions. He insisted that his monks, some of them doctors and farmers, earn a separate living to support the community to avoid the "trouble caused by" seeking donations.

He wrote in formal commune guidelines that a chief goal was to provide a model for Christian unity, to foster "brotherly community, itself set in the body of the Church." He expanded on this theme in several books.

His profile and the commune's grew mightily in the 1960s, after Pope John Paul XXIII invited him to observe the Second Vatican Council. Hordes of young people, mostly Europeans but also Americans, Africans and Asians, began making pilgrimages to Taize, hoping Brother Roger would provide an answer to their frustrations caused by war and politics.

He said his commune, fueled by a social urgency and justice, fulfilled their needs. In the early 1970s, he created youth gatherings that were broadly attended, and he turned his commune into a spiritual Woodstock filled with fellowship and meditative chanting.

Brother Roger encouraged his followers to spend time in ghettos -- in Chicago, New York and Calcutta, among other places -- to help supplement social service programs for the poor and troubled. But he remained suspicious of too much time away from the commune.

"If we would follow our inclinations," he told The Washington Post in 1980, "we would leave Taize and go out and live in the slums. But we stay because in the Western world, there is a very great anxiety among youth that is sometimes more distressing in a sense [than poverty]. It would be like copping out to leave."

There was little evidence that Taize developed into a personality cult, despite some suspicions by the French media. Brother Roger's reputation was largely secure after he won the prestigious Templeton Prize for progress in religion in 1974 and the Unesco Prize for Peace Education in 1988, among other honors.

He received such visitors as Mother Teresa, a fellow Templeton recipient, and befriended religious leaders and politicians. Pope Benedict XVI described the founder as a "beloved brother."