GRANDCHAMP AND TAIZ COMMUNITIES

two associated Protestant religious communities founded in the mid-20th century in Switzerland and France. In the 1940s Roger Schutz, later the prior, founded a community of men at Taiz, a small village in Burgundy, France, for a life of worship and dedication in the traditional ways of celibacy, obedience, and community of goods. The first members came from the French and Swiss Reformed churches and were later joined by men of Lutheran as well as Reformed background from France, Switzerland, Germany, The Netherlands, Denmark, and Spain. Some of the brothers are ordained, and some are laymen who continue to exercise their professional skills in the context of the community's life. In association with Taiz a community of sisters was founded at Grandchamp, near Neuchtel, Switz. One of the aims of both of the communities, which observe the same rule, is to further Christian unity, notably by work with the ecumenical movement.