102 PART TWO: AN EMPIRICAL ACCOUNT provisional for the brothers: the west wall was demolished and a circus tent was placed to accommodate everyone. 250 Fifthly, and intimately related to the previous point, the community has always found itself suspended between “identity and metamorphosis,” 251 as Stefania Palmisano characterized NMCs in general. The brief history of Taizé on the community’s website recalls how Brother Roger withdrew from the house to sing when non-Christians had found refuge with him and how his sister asked their guests to pray in private if they so desired in order to make everyone feel at ease. Brother Roger’s life shows the struggle to remain faithful to the faith of his origins, while enriching it with elements from other traditions and simultaneously respecting the customs and identity of his guests. Somehow, Brother Roger felt he succeeded in integrating or reconciling the Reformed tradition and the Catholic faith. One can often hear Protestant visitors say that Taizé ‘feels’ Catholic while Catholics experience the monastery as rather Protestant. The fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 inaugurated a new flow of visitors from behind the former Iron Curtain. In order for them feel welcome, several onion-shaped domes, so typical of Orthodox church architecture, were erected on the roof of the Church of Reconciliation. The adjacent Orthodox chapel, which had already been consecrated in 1965, accommodated Orthodox worship. The brothers live off the income generated by their pottery and wood working workshops and their publishing house, Presses de Taizé. They explicitly state that they do not accept gifts and personal inheritances. All guests pay for their stay upon arrival, with minimum fees indicated per country, taking the economic circumstances of each context into account. Boarding and lodging are austere: a camping site or barracks with several bunk beds and very simple food, which is distributed three times a day after showing the food vouchers each guest receives upon registration. 1973: A turning point in Taizé’s Eucharistic practice The practice of Eucharistic hospitality from the side of the Roman Catholic Church towards Taizé’s non-Catholic members started in 1972 but was prepared 250 In an interview, Brother Roger recalls how, after witnessing a rainbow after the building was inaugurated, he exclaimed in relief: “Fabulous! It’s a promise that our church will not immobilize us!” Ateliers et Presses de Taizé and Peter Pál Tóth, directors, Moments in the Life of Frère Roger, Documentary on DVD (Ateliers et Presses de Taizé, 2016), chap. 9 (40:47). Cf. Laplane, 251. 251 Palmisano, Exploring New Monastic Communities, 28.
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