May 25, 2007

SOCHAUX, France/GENEVA – The Evangelical Lutheran Church of France (EELF) and the Reformed Church of France (ERF) have agreed to start discussions that will lead to the creation of a United Protestant Church of France by 2013.

The unifying process was agreed during the first joint synod sessions of the EELF and ERF in the context of their respective national synod meetings held from 17 to 20 May in the eastern town of Sochaux, near Montbéliard, France.

The bridge-building process between the two churches started in 2002 when several congregations and regional synods requested their national committees to work toward a "stronger and more visible communion between our churches."

At the recent joint synod sessions, the committees presented their proposals for the uniting process, which would lead to the establishment of one church with "different confessional regions" by 2013. Therefore, the Lutheran and Reformed identities will be preserved in their historical regions.

The EELF, a member church of the Lutheran World Federation since 1947, has 40,000 members, mostly in the Montbéliard and Paris regions, while the ERF has 300,000 members in all of France, except for the Alsace-Lorraine and Montbéliard area.

The Lutheran and Reformed traditions trace their origins back to the Protestant Reformation in Europe in the 16th century.

Commenting on the proposed union, the EELF president, Rev. Joel Dautheville said, "We have to speak out the message of the Reformation. Our unity will help us to speak out this message, which is still relevant today – Good News for all women and men."

The president of the ERF national council Rev. Marcel Manoel spoke of the increasing complexity of the religious landscape in France. "We have to clearly show our identity in this country," he noted.

The EELF and ERF pastors already study together at the Protestant Institute of Theology (Paris and Montpellier), jointly managed by both churches.

The EELF and ERF's move toward unity follows a similar process by the Church of the Augsburg Confession of Alsace and Lorraine (ECAAL) and the Reformed Church of Alsace and Lorraine (ERAL), which in 2004 formed the Union of Protestant Churches in Alsace and Lorraine (UEPAL). In order to give better expression to the churches' common identity under UEPAL they changed their names subsequently to the Protestant Church of the Augsburg Confession of Alsace and Lorraine (EPCAAL) and the Protestant Reformed Church in Alsace and Lorraine (EPRAL) respectively.

Lutheran World Information
Gérald Machabert, a pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of France and editor-in-chief of its monthly magazine, "L'Ami Chrétien" wrote this article for LWI.