Movement 100

\n1974, Movement asked: "What is the attraction of Taiz6 and why does it entice thousands to make
the long pilgrimage there? ls this a new spiritual revival or the final carrot coughed up by a dying
church?" During that Easter, Movement sent John Gareswell for this personal report
The Phenomenon
of Ta'i ze
c0uer me
BEAUTIFUT
fir"st published in Movement 16 0974)
T'
h. past fifteen years has finally seen the demise of
the Church as a major instrument
I
of social control,
particularly in relation to the upbringing of children.
I Even the Catholic church, because of the diminishing
emphasis on a weekly confessional, has lost its grip on the
minds of catholic youth, Where children once learned to
equate the Church with parents, teachers and policemen as
representing a source of control and authority, our
secularised society has found it can safely dispense with
religion as an agent of the conditioning process, hence the
Church, by default-and sometimes by design has lost its
pre-eminent position as a socialising force.
Yet the student-aged population, far from rejoicing in
their,freedom from the stranglehold of the Christian religious
establlshment, are flocking in large numbers to attach
themselves to one ol the many new religious groups
emerging in society. The Church as an outmoded social institution,
peddling meaningless notions of God and irrelevant
patterns of worship, has quite definitely been rejected. But
belief as such, and the ritualisation of belief into some form
of worship, still seems to find favour. From the Christian Union
on the one side, through a spectrum that includes Billy
Graham, Children of God, Divine Light lvlission,
Transcendental Meditation, Zen and ranges out to the occult,
there is a distinct craving to assert religion as a central
feature of life.
Somewhere within this new religious spectrum the
monastic community at Taiz6 is placed; a community which is
exerting such an incredible pull on the imaginaiion of young
people throughout western Europe that several thousand of
them pass through Taiz6 each week of the summer, and at
Easter nearly 20,000 come together to celebrate the
Resurrection of Christ.
The motivaiing force which has driven the Taiz6
Community since its inception in 1949 is a Catholic Workertype
spirit of social and political activism, grounded in a deep
belief in the unifying power of the Body of Christ. The
brothers themselves have three basic commitments: celibacy,
a sharing of all possessions, and acceptance of the Prior's
authority. The Prior, Roger Shultz, first persuaded some
friends to join him in setting up the Community as an attempt
to revive monasticism within the Protestant Churches.
Nowadays brothers join from all denominations and Taize is
closely connected to the Catholic Church and the World
Council of Churches, The broihers engage in a variety of
practical services in the local community and are also
involved in some imaginative cooperative schemes.
Throughout the 1 960s more and more people, particularly
from the younger generation, started arriving at Taiz6 to
share for a short period the spiritual discipline of the
brothers. The Prior has always placed great importance on
prayer as an integral part of a committed Christian life-style.
Three offices are said: early morning, noon and evening.
This pattern remains unchanged, irrespective of the
numbers at Taiz6.
The brothers, possibly promoted by the Prior's enthusiasm
about'the intuitions of youth', intervened ai a crucial
stage in the growth of this spontaneous pilgrimage to Taiz6,
The Letter from Taize was started, circulating amongst
Christian youth throughout the world, and an elaborate
Typically for the
Christian npvements of
the late 60's and early
70's, Jesus was prominently
featured on the
cover of the first 20
issues of lllovarcnt,
racking up a'lmost half
of his 10 cover appearances
overall during
this period.
Not that these were
Sunday School depictions
by any flEans. The cover
of No. 4 (below) with
silhouetted nodern
so1diers standing in for
the Centurions makes its
Vjetnam-era point in a
moving way. The striking
cover of llo. 16 (above),
w'ith its 'intricate
Gustav Dore-like
drawings conprising
Jesus' face was the best
of them, and indeed the
best of lAovarcnt's early
covers.
fnovsfnent 100 5