Afternoon prayers for an ecumenical youth gathering organized by the Taize Community are taking place in the Accor Arena, which can accommodate more than 20,000 people. Credit: Vilacor, via Wikimedia Commons
Dec 30, 2025 / 09:00 am (CNA).
Thousands of young Catholics and other fellow Christians from various traditions are in Paris this week ushering out 2025 and ushering in 2026 as part of an ecumenical gathering organized by the Taizé Community.
The city of Paris and the entire Île-de-France region are the setting for the 48th European Meeting, a pilgrimage from Dec. 28, 2025, to Jan. 1, 2026, in which 15,000 young people ages 18–35 are participating, including 1,000 Ukrainians.
The event includes the participation of nearly 60 brothers out of the 80 who make up the Taizé Ecumenical Community, founded in 1940 with the mission of “being a sign of unity in the Church and in the human family.”
The program includes communal prayer in the large churches of Paris, various local initiatives, testimonies of hope, and workshops. The afternoon prayers take place in the Accor Arena, which can accommodate more than 20,000 people.
Numerous families in Paris and the Île-de-France region have generously welcomed the young people into their homes while various parishes, schools, and sports centers have also made their facilities available.
For Brother Mathew Thorpe, current prior of the community, this event is a call “to break free from our algorithms and experience mutual listening, an opening of the heart to welcome others as they are,” he told the French newspaper La Croix.
He also noted that this year’s gathering includes a psychological support center located in the Notre-Dame de l’Arche d’Alliance (Our Lady Ark of the Covenant) church to provide assistance to young people who have been victims of abuse.
The Taizé brother emphasized that this encounter also offers “a space for young people to listen to Christ in the depths of their being” and expressed his hope that it would help them “go forward in their journey with Christ.”
“The important thing is that they receive something that inspires them to become pilgrims of peace and hope, wherever they are, in their local church, in their places of commitment, to help others eliminate the barriers that divide our society,” he said.
From Spain, 22-year-old Pedro del Río Granado arrived in Paris with other youth from the Archdiocese of Madrid. For this student, the Taizé European Meeting “is a very important experience” and an opportunity to begin the year with God.
Brother Alois, who succeeded Brother Roger, the founding prior of Taizé, said on behalf of the community that this experience “helps us understand the Gospel.”
“We Christians can show that there is something that unites us in Europe, something that keeps us together,” he emphasized.
A few days before the meeting began, Eastern Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople in a message addressed to young people reminded them that “the world needs your clear vision, your courage, and your capacity for hope.”
“It needs young peace builders, capable of resisting violence, exclusion, and contempt for others. It needs witnesses of a humble faith, understood not as power but as service,” he said.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
