Hundreds of Protestants remember their diverse heritage in Mialet

Every year, the village of Mialet in the Cévennes mountains of southern France becomes a meeting place for those who want to keep alive the country's reformed history and its struggle for religious freedom.

On the wooded esplanade in front of the Musée du Désert (Desert Museum), which explains the Huguenot resistance to absolutism in the 16th and 17th centuries and the subsequent struggle for religious freedom, more than a thousand people gathered once again for a joint worship service with holy supper.

The theme on this occasion was: ‘The Spirit blows where it wills: 1525-2025: 500 years of extraordinary Protestant diversity’. It referred specifically to the birth of Anabaptism in Zurich (Switzerland) half a century ago, which would later give rise to the Baptist and free evangelical movements in the following centuries.

The morning service featured Christian Kruger, president of the French Protestant Federation (FPF), as preacher. In his sermon, he emphasised the importance of knowing the historical roots of Protestantism in order to build the future of churches and society.

In the afternoon, researchers Sébastien Fath and Neal Blough, both knowledgeable about the evangelical reality in France and beyond its borders, gave two speeches giving a historical perspective. In the final message of the day, Joëlle Sutter-Razanajohary, pastor of the Federation of Evangelical Baptist Churches of France, called for unity in Protestant diversity.

Alongside the stands of various organisations, participants brought their own picnics and enjoyed times of fellowship. Entire groups of churches from the area participate in this annual gathering, which commemorates the ‘desert assemblies’, that is, the outdoor worship services held clandestinely in the mountains by Protestants persecuted to death by the absolutist Catholic King Louis XIV and his successors.