Europe 2015-2020

Lviv 2018

2017 Birmingham (UK)

2016: Easter Pilgrimage to Bucharest

2018 Meeting in Kemerovo (Siberia)

Invited by the Russian Orthodox Church metropolitan diocese of Kemerovo, Brother Alois went with another brother and a group of young people on pilgrimage to this city in faraway Siberia for the Feast of the Ascension from May 16 to 19, 2018. Most of the pilgrims were able to spend two days in Moscow visiting parishes who had welcomed young people for the 2011 and 2015 Easter pilgrimages led (...)

1 June 2018

2018 Jönköping (Sweden)

At the invitation of Bishop of Växjö, Fredrik Modéus, the Christian churches in Jönköping organized a weekend aimed at young adults aged 17-35 years old, from 20 to 22 April 2018.In mid-April, all priests and deacons from Växjö diocese in the Church of Sweden gathered in Växjö Cathedral for their four yearly meeting. Among their guests were two brothers from Taizé. The Bishop made a double invitation (...)

23 April 2018

2017 Hamina (Finland)

In August 2017, a weekend with a Taizé brother at Hamina, on the border with Russia, was part of the official celebration of 100 years of Finland’s independence ‘Suomi100’. The invitation to hold the meeting was an initiative of the City of Hamina together with Lutheran, Orthodox, Catholic and free Churches.City of Peace The Taizé Hamina meeting was small but beautiful, and meaningful. The (...)

17 September 2017

2016 Belarus

A brother spent a week in Belarus in Autumn 2016, to visit the Christian communities and meet the young people preparing to participate in the Riga meeting at the end of the year. In spring 2015, Brother Alois and four other brothers spent two days in Minsk between the pilgrimages in Russia and Ukraine. The links are ancient between Taizé and the Churches of Belarus. Many young people came to (...)

23 November 2016

2016 France: The testimony of refugees

During the holiday of All Saints, more than five thousand French young people passed through Taizé in three successive waves. Among others, they met young Germans, Belgians, Dutch, Danish or Spanish, who were also on a pilgrimage on the hill, as well as Young refugees and an Iraqi family hosted by the community prepared texts to share their experience: My name is Ahmed and I was born in a (...)

3 November 2016

2016: Visits in Russia

Since the two pilgrimages in 2011 and 2015 with youth to Moscow during Holy Week and Easter, links with Orthodox parishes in the city have continued and deepened. Recently a brother returned to Moscow and also visited St Petersburg.In central parishes of the two cities, a day was held on successive weekends for young Russians beginning with the Divine Liturgy, then a Bible study and small (...)

12 June 2016

2016 Rescuing Refugees in the Mediterranean

Celine, a young woman from Montpellier, was at the European Meeting in Valencia and spoke there about her human and faith experience as a young nurse in India, Tanzania and in the Calais refugee camp. After the European meeting, she boarded a lifeboat of the Mediterranean SOS Association, Aquarius, where she joined a team of Doctors of the World. She came back to France in May, and she hopes (...)

27 May 2016

2016: On Lesbos with refugees

A young woman from Portugal who was in Taizé as a volunteer for several months, Sara Sofia, is now working on the island of Lesbos in a refugee camp. At the time when Pope Francis, Patriarch Bartholomew and the Archbishop of Athens, Hieronymos, are going to the island to meet with the refugees, we are publishing her account of her experiences. “I volunteer at a refugee camp in Lesbos, (...)

15 April 2016

2016 Moldova

One of the brothers recently spent a week visiting the Republic of Moldova. Come Back in the Spring! There are some countries that you hear about all the time. There are others you just hear about when there is a problem. And then there are places that seem to be almost invisible, that a lot of people don’t even realise exist: “Moldova – isn’t that where Tintin went to find King Ottakar’s (...)

15 March 2016