Theis, Édouard 1899-

Édouard Theis (1899-1984); Christian pacifist and and Protestant pastor in Le Chambon, France; married to Mildred Theis (born in Ohio). Édouard Theis taught in the United States, and was a missionary and teacher in Madagascar and the Cameroons before joining the theology faculty at the University of Paris, where he met André Trocmé; Trocmé invited him to serve as half-time assistant pastor under him in the French Protestant church of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon. As a pacifist and conscientious objector to war, Theis resisted Nazism and racism during World War II. Along with André & Magda Trocmé, Theis and his wife Mildred were leaders of the town's collective efforts to hide Jewish and other refugees from the Gestapo. He was arrested on February 13, 1943, along with André Trocmé and Roger Darcissac, and interned in a camp by the Vichy police, but was released after a few months. In the last months of the Nazi occupation, often at great risk, he guided refugees through the mountains of eastern France to the border of Switzerland. The Collège Cévenol was founded in 1938 by André Trocmé and other Christian pacifists. Theis and Trocmé co-founded the Association Unifiée du Collège Cévenol (Collège Cévenol Association) in 1945. After the end of the war, André Trocmé travelled throughout the United States seeking funding for the Collège Cévenol. He met Carl and Florence Sangree, who had organized refuge for Jewish exiles in New England. Carl Sangree was a birthright Quaker who had become a Congregationalist pastor. In 1952, Carl and Florence Sangree founded The American Friends of the Collège Cévenol (AFCC). The AFCC helped raise funds for the college to purchase a farm in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon as the site of a new campus. From 1946 onwards, the Sangrees raised funds from Quakers (including the American Friends Service Committee) and Congregationalists. The college is currently named Le Collège-Lycée Cévenol International, and is now a secular institution.