The Organs of Taizé

In the Church of Reconciliation at Taizé there is a large pipe organ. I blogged about it last summer when it was installed, but I have come to learn so much more about it and its predecessors and yet now I seem to know so much less! By finding old photographs, I have seen that the organ in Taizé has changed a number of times over the years and it does beg the question why?

From this very old photo probably from the 1960s you can see what I am fairly sure is the original organ. The niche in the wall fits it perfectly, or it fits the niche perfectly, whichever way you would like to put it, but in any case it looks like it belongs. I can’t find out who made the organ, but that will come with time.

Interestingly, I have found information about what is possibly the second organ in Taizé. This organ was built specifically for the church in 1974 by Jürgen Ahrend a German organ builder, however, that had a very short life in the church because it was dismantled and put into storage in the Bressse in 1979. Via a monastery in Switzerland this organ eventually ended up in Lyon Cathedral in 1996, where it still is today. I suspect it was rather too loud for Taizé if it can be used in a cathedral!

What happened in 1979, I have no idea, but when I first visited the church in 2006 there was definitely an organ, I never heard it played, but it was there. Obviously no one thought it interesting enough to take a picture of because I have scanned the web and can find nothing. However, a friend of mine did find this photo in her collection, rather out of focus, but clearly an organ. Apparently this organ became “unreliable” due to the hot air heating system in the church and so it was removed when the church was refurbished in the winter of 2008/2009.

I personally thought the church was a better place without that organ. An organ of that size seems to be out of place and too overwhelming for the services in Taizé. However, a new organ had been commissioned from Gerhard Grenzing, an organ builder from Catalonia. Rather unusually for a organ, part of the specification was that it had to be “quiet”! When I saw the new thing arrive I thought it looked as if it could blast you out of the church, but apparently the sound is very much in keeping with the quiet meditative nature of the chants. Also interestingly the organist sits sideways on to the church so that he does not have his back to the congregation. This must make it easier for the organist to still feel part of the community of singing.

Finding all this out, has made me hanker for more information. What happened in 1979? Why have there been so many organs over the years? How many have there actually been between 1979 and 2006? Maybe some of our new friends who have been coming to Taizé for years will be ale to fill in some gaps, I don’t know, but I will certainly keep digging. So anyone with any information or any photos throughout the years, let me know!

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The Bells, the Bells

View of La Tuilerie from Taizé

I’ve mentioned before that the bells of Taizé are the first thing I hear when I wake up in the morning, OK I know I should be up before 08.15, but that’s life in Burgundy for you. In fact I was told that the reason that people sleep so well here is the extra oxygen in the air from being next to the forest. As you can see from the photo our house is nestled amongst the trees and when people come to stay here it is true that they sleep very well and deeply. I had always thought that it was the long journey they had just made, or the fact that at last they can sleep somewhere where there is no light pollution or somewhere where it is truly quiet, but Mme R reliably informed me that it is the potency of the air that does it.

Now Mme R is an interesting person, she has lived here all her life, she has an ingrained disrespect for all in authority be that local government, the police, the Catholic church or anyone else who puts their head above the parapet and she has an opinion on everything and she “knows” a lot. We love to listen to her rantings about local dignitaries, in particular the one about the Mayor (not ours I hasten to add) who was caught stealing milk from a neighbour’s farm to make cheese. His cheese farm is out of bounds to us now, we are not allowed to buy from there in case we incur Mme R’s wrath. She has a host of such stories which all go together to prove her general conspiracy theory of authority figures.

We were at Mme R’s house one day a couple of years ago when the Taizé bells started to ring and that prompted a story about how there had been a pond under the bells originally, to act as a “sound mirror” to reflect the sound far and wide. The local villagers had complained about the noise and these complaints had prompted the monks to change this situation. Another conspiracy theory, but at least the monks did the right thing in the end. We take these stories with the pinch of salt that they deserve, but we enjoy them none the less. Oh yes and don’t get her started on windmills, we have had too many hours of stories of money grabbing officials just after lining their pockets with gold at the expense of us residents!

Original Taizé bell tower

The other day I found a picture which shocked me to the core, I dragged Cees over to look at the picture and we finally agreed that some of what Mme R had told us was in fact true. As you can see in the photo, when the bells in Taizé were originally installed, they were indeed installed over water. What’s more, they were in a completely different tower construction, much more open and no more than 1 m from the ground with a small pond underneath. Also this old tower was in the middle of a large open space in-between the living accommodation of the monks and the new church. Those bells must have been deafening for many villages around. No wonder there were complaints!

Having said that the original bell tower is aesthetically pleasing to look at unlike the truly ugly gate-like construction the bells now hang in. However with the bells now at a height of at least 10 m above the ground, with them being relatively boxed-in in their new tower and of course with there being many new buildings around the bell tower, the sound of the bells is very pleasant indeed and not a bad sound to hear when you first wake up.

So I think an apology in order here: Sorry Mme R we will believe you next time!

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Taizé Church Now and Then

As readers of this blog will have noticed, the church at Taizé fascinates me. The last time I wrote about it, I wrote how the church expands and contracts with the seasons to accommodate more or fewer people (see here). But in this blog I am going to attempt to reconstruct its history.

When Frère Roger returned to Taizé after the war, he returned with three like-minded individuals and this was the beginning of the Taizé order. However, the order was not formalised until a couple of years later when the Taizé rule - a “parable of community” – had been written. On Easter day in 1949, seven brothers committed themselves to a life following Christ in simplicity, celibacy and community. This small community celebrated their daily rites in the Romanesque church in Taizé. This church is very small and as the numbers of summer pilgrims increased, the church became too small to house everyone who wanted to take part in the services. So early in the 60s it was decided that a bigger church be built.

After the war, a German Christian movement was set up, by volunteers, to help countries who had suffered under the Nazis. It consisted of a group of architects who’s intention was to build symbols of reconciliation in places where the war had caused great pain. This group was called Aktion Sühnezeichen Friedensdienste, or Action Reconciliation Service for Peace (ARSP) and it still exists to day. It was in the early 60s that ARSP decided to work with the Taizé community to build the Church of Reconciliation. The monks designed the church and with the assistance of ARSP architects, its volunteer youth workers and other Taizé volunteers, the church rose out of the ground.

The floor area of the Romanesaue church was roughly 90 mˆ2, capable of housing 90 – 100 worshipers and the new Church of Reconciliation was about 1,020 mˆ2, well over ten times the size. It was a huge leap of faith to believe that this new church could ever be filled. But by the early 70s it was obvious that the community had in fact underestimated the size of church needed and in the height of those summers it had to erect circus style tents by the front entrance to increase capacity.

The tents were one option, but in the early 90s a more permanent structure was conceived and planning permission was then given to increase the size of the new church. The church has been added to over the years with extra length and extra wings so that the church is now not far short of 4,600 mˆ2. It has to be said though that even now in the height of summer the Saturday evening and Sunday morning services attract more people than the church can hold and many of the faithful have to follow the services from outside.

So in the course of 50 years the capacity of the church has increased from a tiny village church to a huge building which is ¾ of the size of St Paul’s Cathedral in London. It is now difficult to imagine that this was ever just a small community of 7 monks.

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A Sunny Sunday with Songs and Silence

I decided to go to my favourite Taizé service today, the Sunday morning Eucharist. The service starts at 10.00 and it basically follows the Catholic Eucharist in French, but with a Taizé twist. I left home with plenty of time to spare, but at this time of year that isn’t really necessary as parking is easy and near the church. In the summer I don’t bother with the Taizé car park, it is always full to overload and then there is the nightmare of getting out of Taizé itself after the service with all the busses and people milling around. I usually park in Ameugny and walk from there, this means I don’t have to drive in Taizé at all. Many of the people staying in our gites, walk or cycle up the hill, but I know I would end up marching for fear of being late, even though I know it doesn’t take that long to get there and I would be all hot and flustered when I went in. So it is the car for me - well that’s my excuse anyway, the other theory is that I’m just lazy, but I don’t hold with that one!

It is still the quiet season, so the church is at its smallest, but as always, it feels full and the singing is strong. Today there were a surprising number of tourists on the benches at the side. The tourists stand out as they usually have a badge with their name on it (yes some holiday tours include a service at Taizé!) and they rarely sit on the floor. Because of the way the church was built, one side of the front of the church rises up like a baseball stadium and the tourists sit on the benches at the top or on the steps leading down into the main floor area. It gives them a bird’s eye view of the proceedings. From my lowly position on the floor, I have noticed that the tourists rarely sing or participate and they shift about a lot during the silence, I think it makes them feel uncomfortable and I do often wonder why they came. Hopefully some of them will have absorbed some of the essence of the community and been touched by the experience, but I am not really so sure.

In contrast there was an elderly couple next to me on the floor. Obviously not regular Taizé goers, but at least they came to join in. He had decided to try out one of the little kneeling stools rather than sit on the floor, however, he didn’t check how others were using them and he also didn’t spot that the top of the bench slopes. So when he sat on it (rather than kneeling within it) he tumbled over backwards as the slope was leaning to the back. On his second attempt he checked out what other stool users were doing and did the same, with significantly more success. I have never tried the stools, to me they look uncomfortable, but people I have spoken to who use them are very happy with them. One of our campers used to set off up the hill every morning with her stool strapped to the back of her bike, the parcel shelf being just the right length and width for it to fit on nicely. My main reason for not trying the stools is that during the service you have to turn round and stand up and down a couple of times. The aforementioned elderly gentleman, had enormous problems with this manoeuvring and in the end gave up on the stool altogether. Sitting on the floor became preferable to wobbling off with every turn.

The service followed its usual pattern of songs, bible readings, prayer and silence but I was rather surprised that there were no Alleluias sung at all during the service today, a great pity as I always find them very uplifting and to my confusion, the Lord’s Prayer was sung in French. If they have changed over from English to French permanently, I need to brush up on the words, I don’t mind sight reading the songs that I don’t know, but it feels rather inappropriate to have to read out the Lord’s Prayer. It has been a while since I have been up the hill to Taizé - it was good to follow a service again, in fact it was lovely just to be out and about on such a beautiful sunny winter’s morning.

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Food at Taizé

When people I meet tell me they have spent a week at Taizé, after the stories of the group discussions and meditation, there is always a comment about the food. The comments tend to be vague, but words like “simple” are often used. Anyone can sample the cuisine up on the hill by buying a meal ticket for 1.50 Euros. To be honest I amazed they can fill up those hungry young stomachs for that price, no matter how “simple” it is.

I am very impressed with the organisation that goes into feeding so many people at once – up to 6,000 at peak times. The menus and buying in of the food are managed by the Taizé permanents (lay people who live within the community for a long period of time) and the preparation work and serving is done by the youngsters who have chosen that as their work duty for the week. The kitchens are semi-open air in the summer and as you walk through the community you can see the kids stirring huge cauldrons full of the next meal. The meals are distributed at various locations around the community and you queue up at your allotted spot at meal times.

One blog I found said this about the food at Taizé: “The food at Taizé is basic! Mostly pasta, rice, potato based dishes, with little meat. If you find that you don’t like the food, don’t worry because there is a place called OYAK which opens three times a day and serves food such as hot dogs, pizza, croque monsieurs and drinks to supplement the rations!” Does that say something about the food in Taizé or modern unhealthy eating standards I wonder?

Many of the people who stay in our gites for their week in Taizé quote the food and living in barracks as the main reasons they want to stay with us rather than in the community itself. Having said that, they could stay in one of the silent houses, I have heard complements about the food there.

There are always exceptions of course and one young chap who stayed on the campsite the week before his stay in Taizé told us he always volunteered to do the cleaning of the church as his work duty because you could eat as much as you liked – he obviously loved the food. The church cleaners have to clean during meal times and so are fed later with unlimited rations. Another camper mentioned how attached she became to her red bowl during her stay at Taizé. The bowl is used for many things, drinking coffee at breakfast time, tea at tea time and soup with the meals. I think that so many people fall in love with their bowls, you can even buy these things in the shop. I think I would prefer one of the lovely pottery bowls that the monks make over the red plastic ones, but then I have never eaten at Taizé, if I had I might change my mind!

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New Year in Taizé

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Taizé is deserted by the monks at then end of each year. Only the monks too old or infirm to travel and a skeleton staff of so called “permanents” (young volunteers who live all year round in Taizé) and one or two other monks remain. The week spanning the new year is the one week in the year that no one can stay in the Communauté. The services still go on, but are usually held in the tiny Romanesque church in the village itself, much as all the winter services used to be up until about 15 years ago. All of the rest of the monks will have gone off to the annual European Taizé meeting. This is all part of the “pilgrimage of trust on earth” initiated by Frère Roger over 30 years ago.

Frère Roger did not want to create a cult or a following around the community in Taizé and his idea of the “pilgrimage of trust” was for each person who visists Taizé to go home and live out what he or she has learned whilst in Taizé. Hopefully they will have an increased awareness of themselves and of others and they will have picked up many practical things they can do within their own environment. This learning is often reinforced by these young people coming together on a regular basis for so called Taizé prayer meetings, but then they go back to their local churches and to their own community and live out the “pilgrimage of trust”.

Brother Alois is quoted as saying “Many people spread across the earth are taking part in the “pilgrimage of trust” in their daily lives. … Sometimes we have to go towards new horizons, far away or nearby, to discover the hope of the Gospel over and over again. Our world, where so much suffering wreaks havoc, needs women and men who radiate God’s peace by their lives. So let us make courageous decisions to go forward on the road of love and trust.”

Every year since 1978 for five days at the end of one year and start of the next, the European meeting takes place. This time thirty thousand young people arrived in Poznań, Poland on the 29th December. They are housed with host families and they have been attending morning services in one of the 150 host churches that is near to their accommodation. In the mornings, they take part in a program organised by that parish and then they travel to the exhibition centre housing the event in Poznań itself for the mid-day service, lunch, afternoon workshops on faith and social topics and then the evening meal and evening prayer, returning to their accommodation at the end of the day.

In mid-September the preparation centre was set up in Poznań, a lorry load of furniture, computers and other equipment necessary to set up this centre arrived. Ten permanents and a handful of brothers of the Taizé Community and sisters of St. Andrew also arrived. They have been working with the local representatives to get this event off the ground. The shear logistics of accommodating, transporting and feeding such a large crowd is mind-blowing. One should not underestimate the amount of people involved. Mâcon, the capital of our département Saône-et-Loire, has just over 30,000 inhabitants, so this event will have housed, transported, fed and ministered to a crowd almost the size of the population of Mâcon. Quite incomprehensible.

I don’t know they do it, but the brothers are used to managing large crowds and getting things done. Even when away from home, their day is regulated by prayer and meditation and this sustains them over the three month marathon of organisation. It is through the giving and sharing required during the organisation of and the taking part in, one of these European meetings, that is the essence of Frère Roger’s initiative. To pull off an event like this, everyone has to agree to put aside any differences they may have and break down any barriers blocking their paths and in doing so they will enrich themselves and the others around them. That is the heart of the “pilgrimage of trust”.

The logo has been taken from the Taizé website. Copyright © Ateliers et Presses de Taizé, 71250 Taizé, France.

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Taizé Pottery

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The monks in Taizé accept no money, no donations, no inheritance absolutely nothing, not one penny, they earn their own way in life. This attitude is very different to other religious orders who rely on donations, great benefactors, some have land and therefore income or they just expect their parishioners to pay for their services.

I had never really though about it before, but take today’s ministers of all denominations, they have a salary from their church. They are paid to counsel the parishioners, to run the church and its services. The monks of Taizé are counsellors to the young who need help, they guide bible study sessions, they assist in study groups and they run the services three times a day, but they still expect no income from that side of their lives - they do other work for a living. They have a press where they publish books, cards, posters, they make lovely enamelled dove-shaped Taizé crosses as well as other pendants and they make pottery.

The pottery is stunning in its simplicity which give it a style and beauty all of its own. You can buy a whole dinner service or you can buy the pieces which are “stand-alone”. Most notably the candle holders and the oil lamps. It all sound a bit twee and amateurish, but the quality and style of the pieces are a match to and are, one could argue, better than many of the other artisans in the area. Their aim is to “produce objects for daily use with prices everyone can afford” a goal they certainly achieve. Most of their pieces are “stoneware” with some objects cast using a porcelain paste, the lamps are made this way.

Stoneware glazes are formed by the fusion of mixtures of various minerals at high temperatures. Some are coloured by adding pigments such as iron oxides that produce ivory, green, black and brown glazes, cobalt or copper for blue and violet, titanium for orange-yellow. The glazes sometimes include vegetable ash composed of the minerals the plants drew from the ground.

Frère Daniel started the pottery workshop in the early days of Taizé and together with Frère Lutz, the pottery production has flourished over the years. Most of the work is done in the winter months when there are few visitors and then the workshops become factory-like in their scale of production. In fact some of preparation and initial firing of the pottery is done in conjunction with neighbouring potters as the demand for the pottery becomes too great for the monks to keep up with. The shop in Taizé is bursting with pottery in the days leading up to Easter, but by October, it is looking distinctively empty.

Some of the monks work in the pottery workshops all year round and when full production is not going on, they have the time to be more creative in their output In particular, this autumn, Frère Daniel is exhibiting his more creative works called “Metamorphoses” in Paris at the Compagnie de la Chine et des Indes. Click here for details of the exhibition which runs until the end of October.

Earlier this year Frère Lutz exhibited his pottery alongside the collages and aquarelles of Frère Stephen in Mâcon at the Galerie Mary-Ann. For more details of work in exhibitions check-out the Taizé website click here, they are usually announced on this page, but if nothing is there go to the books, CDs, DVDs.

But I like the simple stoneware dinner services, cups, bowls, plates and the lamps. For many people who stay with us, these are essential souvenirs to take home and something to use all year round. They make beautiful gifts for family and friends or in my case just as a treat for myself.

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