Suzanne de Diétrich papers

Suzanne de Diétrich (1891-1981) was born in Niederbronn in the Rhine valley to a family of industrialists, members of the Reformed Church of France. She studied engineering in Lausanne, where she also took part in the Christian Students Association’s activities. She graduated in 1913—the first French woman to obtain a degree in engineering—and attended the congress of the French Federation of Christian Students Associations (the “Fédé”) in 1914. Her attendance at the congress inspired her to dedicate herself more fully to the Student Christian Movement. She started regular Bible study sessions at the Fédé, promoting the idea that the Bible was available to everyone, at every step of their spiritual development. During this time, she also took part in the discovery of Karl Barth (1886-1968), the great German theologian whose work was spread in France by pastor Pierre Maury (1890-1956) via Faith and Life magazine.

She joined the World Student Christian Federation in 1920, serving as an executive committee member (1920-1935), vice chair (1928-1932), and staff member (1935-1946). In 1932, she organized the first meeting of Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox theologians. During World War II, she stayed in Geneva to support Christian Students’ Associations in Europe, while the main WSCF office had temporarily relocated to Toronto. While there, she wrote a history of the WSCF, and Le Dessein de Dieu, her most well-known work. It was published in 1945, and has been translated into thirteen languages.

In September 1939, along with Madeleine Barot (1909-1995), she took part in the foundation of the CIMADE (Comité inter-mouvements auprès des évacués), which gave assistance and support to people uprooted by war, beginning with those who were evacuated from the French provinces of Alsace and Lorraine at the beginning of World War II. In 1941, she was one of sixteen pastors and lay people who wrote the Thèses de Pomeyrol, advocating the resistance of the French Reformed Church to Nazism.

In 1946, de Diétrich took part in the foundation of the new Ecumenical Institute at Bossey in the Swiss Vaud region, a sort of laboratory where ecumenicalism was a way of living. She was in charge of training lay people for ecumenical work. She stayed there for eight years. In 1954, she settled in Paris, but often travelled to North America and Canada to teach theology. She has been nominated Doctor Honoris Causa in theology by several universities in North America and Europe. In 1958, she became a member of the Board of directors of the CIMADE. In 1979, she moved to the Deaconess House in Strasbourg, where she lived until her death on January 24, 1981.

In addition to a large number of Bible study resources, Suzanne de Diétrich’s works include: