The Temple de Passy-Annonciation

In 1858, pastor Eugène Casalis, a well-known missionary in Lesotho and then also head of the Paris Mission Society, started gathering a small Protestant community in the Passy village, at that time part of the western outskirts of Paris.

  • Temple de Passy-Annonciation
    The Temple de Passy-Annonciation © Fondation Bersier (Thibault Godin 2016)
  • Temple de Passy-Annonciation
    The Temple de Passy-Annonciation © Fondation Bersier (Thibault Godin 2016)

The first parish building was a collapsable Anglican chapel made of wood, used for the 1867 World Exhibition. Pastor Edmond Stapfer directed the building of the present premises to the designs of the architect Edouard Aubert, on a plot given by the Delessert family. He had imagined a neo-Romanesque building in sandstone. A wide staircase surrounded by columns and topped with a mosaic pediment lead to the nave.

The temple was dedicated in 1891 by pastor Louis Vernes, then pastor for the Temple des Batignolles and president of the Paris Consistory.

In 1934 the building was enlarged with an apse and an ambulatory. In 1959 stained-glass windows were ordered from Maurice Max-Ingrand.

In 1973, thanks to a generous gift, a new organ was built by Kurt Schwenkedel.

A congregationalist pastor who refused the parish to join the French Protestant Federation had succeeded pastor Stapfer in 1908, and the parish experienced difficult times. In 1918 the Church Council asked the pastor Marc Boegner, who was born in 1881 and died in 1970, to restore peace. Until 1954 he ensured a long and precious ministry while being president of the national Council of the French Reformed Church created in 1938 by him, as well as president of the French Protestant Federation and co-president of the ecumenical Council of Churches.

In 1934 pastor Pierre Maury, who was born in 1890 and died in 1956, joined pastor Boegner. The former was a theologian who introduced Karl Barth’s ideas in France, he had a successful ministry in the parish, while bearing heavy responsibilities with the French Reformed Church, the Faculty of Theology, and the ecumenical Council of Churches.

Other pastors, such as André de Robert, Charles Bonzon, Pierre Gagnier, Pierre Courthial, Daniel Atger among others, contributed substantially to the visibility of the parish which has appointed two pastors since then.

The parish joined the United Protestant Church of France.

The Temple de Passy-Annonciation

19 Rue Cortambert, 75116 Paris, France

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