One of the ecumenical movement's most emblematic figures has been stabbed to death during evening prayers at the popular interfaith community he founded in France.
Brother Roger, a 90-year-old Protestant pastor who founded the Taize religious community in 1940, was stabbed by a woman at about 8.40pm on Tuesday in front of a congregation of some 2,500 young people.
The Pope was among religious and political leaders from across Europe who expressed shock.
PHOTO: EPA
A gendarmerie spokesman in the nearby town of Macon in Burgundy said a 36-year-old Romanian woman had been wrestled to the ground by two members of the congregation immediately after the killing and was now in custody.
The local public prosecutor, Jean-Louis Coste, said the woman, who had arrived at Taize alone two days earlier, was "not unbalanced enough to justify psychiatric care" and that a judicial investigation would be opened soon.
The woman, named only as Luminita, spoke fairly coherently and was capable of undergoing interrogation, he said. "She said that she didn't intend to kill him but that she wanted to attract his attention. She admits the facts."
He said Luminita had bought the knife on Monday in the nearby town of Cluny. That suggested premeditation, he said.
"The woman who stabbed him had managed to work her way into the middle of the choir," Brother Emile, the Taize religious community's spokesman, told French radio. "She moved towards him, but we didn't notice anything untoward because we had our backs to her. We heard the scream, we turned round, but it was already over."
Brother Emile said Brother Roger had stayed sitting upright but had been seriously wounded in the back and throat. A doctor in the congregation and another from Cluny "did what they could but it was too late. He died soon after 9pm."
President Jacques Chirac said that he was "profoundly moved" by the "tragic death," while the French prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, said the pastor would "remain a leading figure in our religious history."
Germany's Chancellor Gerhard Schroder said that he regarded Brother Roger as one of the "great contemporary personalities of religious life."
Roger Schutz-Marsauche, the son of a Swiss father and a French mother, studied theology at Strasbourg and Lausanne. In 1940, at the age of 25, he left his native Switzerland by bicycle and rented a small farmhouse in Taize, where he welcomed mainly Jewish refugees fleeing the second world war. The village was close to the demarcation line separating free and occupied France.
Today, the community, founded with an enduring call for Christians of all persuasions to come together in peace, love and reconciliation, is made up of more than 100 brothers, including Catholics and Protestants, from nearly 30 countries.
Sunday services draw congregations of up to 5,000 worshippers.
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