American Church of Paris -- xxiii

October 28:

My Jeep driver, who landed in Normandy during the invasion of Europe, told me this incident. A soldier found his brother, a para-trooper hanging in a tree. His body was mutilated. Just then a MP came up with several German prisoners. He yelled at the MP to get out of the way and then riddled the German prisoners with bullets from his machine gun. My jeep driver saw this happen.

Clearly, Chaplain Van, who has not as yet seen any action but lots and lots of destroyed buildings and shattered lives, is taken with the stories from the front. The stories he repeats, I'm sure, helped him deal with the fears he--and everyone else-harbored.

During the invasion, a French boy had a grenade in his hand and threatened to throw it at our soldiers. The officer yelled, "Shoot him." He was killed instantly.

My jeep driver, who had spent a lot of time at the front, said that life in the fox-holes was terrible. On a rainy day, the soldiers stand ankle deep in the mud. Being in Paris was like heaven. 

With the Jeep driver's stories as background, that last sentence comes to color Chaplain Van's time in Paris--five months. With a fancy hotel room as a foxhole, and a church unlike any he'd ever seen holding his pulpit, the horrors of war can be kept aside, even though the front is an ever present reality.

October 29, Sunday

Perhaps the most beautiful and unusual church in any land is the American Church of Paris. It is located on the Seine river in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. Three American Presidents--Ulysses Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson worshipped in this church, besides ambassadors and nobles of many lands. President Wilson attended this church during the days of the Versailles Treaty after World War I. American students, government workers, businessmen, and many American tourists flocked to Paris every year and attended this church. After the First World War (1914-1918) many American soldiers, having married French girls, remained in Paris and became members of this church. However, when the German army approached Paris, during the Second World War (1939-45) the entire congregation fled to Switzerland and the church was closed.

When Paris was liberated during the Second World War the members  of this congregation gradually returned. I needed a worship center for the American soldiers and for the English-speaking people of Paris. So I opened the American Church of Paris and held services in this church for five months in 1944. 

This church claims to be the oldest American speaking church on foreign soil. It is also known as the American Embassy Church. The former organist of this church returned from Switzerland and started a choir. A member of the board asked me if I would consider a call from this congregation after the war. I told him that I would prefer to go back to the United States. They gave me a book containing the entire history of this church.