Massacre of Protestants in 1572

Saint Germain was the first bishop of Paris, and the 6th century basilica of St. Germain des Pres, named after him, is probably the oldest church in Paris. We often get off of bus #63 in front of this church in its present form in order to cross the street to a Monaprix Supermarket. The St. Germain community became a Benedictine Abbey during the 7th & 8th centuries and the center of intellectual life and learning in Paris for centuries to come. It was in the 16th century that Jacques Lefevre translated the first French Bible and in the process, became sympathetic with the Protestant cause. Through Lefevre's teaching Guillaume Farel and other intellectual Christians were captivated by the Protestant ideas. The bishop of St. Germain invited Lefevre to come and teach at the church. Over time, in the neighborhood of St. Germain, many French Protestants, called Hugenots, lived. In 1555, in the basement of what is now an art gallery, the first Parisian Protestant baptisms took place, and the first Reformed Synod met in 1559.

Protestant history in Paris took a dark turn, however, with the infamous St. Bartholomew Day Massacre on August 24, 1572 Thousands of Protestants were killed. Over a thousand corpses were thrown into the Seine River, and they washed up along the banks of what were then islands and marshland outside the city, but where now is located the American Church in Paris.

It is humbling and a bit startling to realize that our church here, a Protestant Church, is built upon the site where the bodies of so many Protestant Christian martyrs drifted ashore after an ugly and tragic death! The commemoration of St. Bartholomew Day is coming up on Monday, August 24th.

(researched by our senior pastor, the Rev. Dr. Scott Herr)