Les Protestants d'Alsace et de Moselle de 1919 A 1939
Institution:
Paris 12Disciplines:
Directors:
Abstract EN:
The history of alsatian and lorraine protestants (reformed and lutherans) between 1919 and 1939 has been reconstructed through administrative and ecclesiastical archives as well as through protestant newspapers. The study of the political and religious life of the protestants under the new circumstances focusses on the relations between the authorities and the churches and, on the other hand, on the features of their religious life that differ from the other french protestants'. The first part presents the legal status of the protestant churches as well as their geographical location. It describes the modifications introduced after 1918, particularly the emigration of the ministers, the reorganization of the churches, their relations with the government services, the rise of internal conflicts. The second part studies the religious life, through the religious practices but also through the contents of the religious papers, the university studies of the ministers and the activities of religious associations. The definition of the church is the only theological concept studied because it links the religious life to the socio-political life. The third part, at last, studies the political tendencies of the protestant, not by analysing the polls, but by studying their national attitude in 1918 and then in front of autonomism and nazism. Their reactions to the planned introduction of the french separation of churches and state and of the state school laws are the result of an interaction between religious and political ideas. In fact, the closeness to french protestantism was really difficult because of many differences: differences in the worship langage (german in alsace-moselle), differences in religious traditions (mainly german and lutheran in alsace-moselle, calvinistic in the rest of france), differences in the attitude toward the french secular culture. The alsatian protestant and francophile middle-class tried to remove these difficulties but its effort revealed only the gap between themselves and the religious culture of the alsatian + protestant people ;.
Abstract FR:
L'histoire des protestants, reformes et lutheriens, d'alsace et de moselle entre 1919 et 1939 est reconstituee par le moyen des archives administratives, des archives ecclesiastiques et de la presse confessionnelle protestante. La question de leur reintegration politique et religieuse, etudiee en trois parties, privilegie deux axes: les relations entre les autorites civiles et les autorites religieuses ; la vie religieuse des protestants d'alsace-moselle et les rapports qui en decoulent avec l'ensemble des protestants francais. La premiere partie presente le statut juridique et ecclesiastique des eglises protestantes ainsi que leur implantation geographique. Elle decrit les modifications qui y ont ete apportees apres 1918, en s'attardant sur l'emigration des pasteurs, la reorganisation des eglises, leurs relations avec l'administration, la naissance de conflits internes. La deuxieme partie etudie la vie religieuse, telle qu'elle peut etre saisie a travers la pratique des fideles mais aussi a travers le contenu de la presse religieuse, la formation des pasteurs et l'encadrement associatif des fideles. La definition de l'eglise, seule notion theologique abordee, relie la vie religieuse a la vie politico-sociale. La troisieme partie enfin etudie les sensibilites politiques des protestants, non par l'etude de leurs votes, mais par leur attitude nationale a la liberation de 1918 puis envers l'autonomisme et le nazisme. Leurs reactions aux projets d'introduire la loi de separation des eglises et de l'etat et les lois scolaires laiques francaises resultent de l'interaction de leurs conceptions religieuses et politiques. En fin de compte, les difficultes d'une reelle ouverture vers le protestantisme de culture francaise furent nombreuses : differences de la langue cultuelle (l'allemand en alsace-moselle), differences des traditions (essentiellement germaniques et lutheriennes pour l'alsace-moselle, majoritairement reformees dans le reste de la france), differences a l'egard de la culture laique francaise. La bourgeoisie protestante francophile d'alsace tenta de depasser ces difficultes mais ses efforts ne firent que reveler un hiatus avec la culture religieuse du + peuple protestant ; alsacien.