The evangelicals in France who meet locally as ‘assemblies’ and are
sometimes referred to as ‘les frères larges’ have already been
described in substance by the historian Sébastien Fath with a trio of
characteristics, namely ‘a pronounced and total rejection of all
clergy, an emphasis on Biblical holiness and distrust of any
institutional ecumenism’. The Brethren movement, however, as a
whole has remained ‘the most under-studied sector of France’s
nebulous evangelicalism’.
To read more about the Open Brethren in France, click on this pdf:
What is the connection between the Eiffel Tower, and the Brethren? The answer is the engineer, Maurice Koechlin (1856–1946), a life-long member of the Brethren. In 1879 he joined Gustave Eiffel’s company in which he became chief engineer. It was Maurice who devised the structural concept and form of the tower, which was erected in 1889 as the entrance to the World’s Fair of that year. Though named after Gustave Eiffel, the symbol of Paris owes its design to the engineering ingenuity of Maurice Koechlin.
