Paul-Henri Marron

Paul-Henri Marron
Paul-Henri Marron, the first pastor of the Reformed Church in Paris
Born	(1754-04-25)April 25, 1754 Leyden
Died	June 31, 1832(1832-06-31) (aged 78) Paris
Cause of death	Cholera
Nationality	French Huguenot
Citizenship	Dutch
Education	Academy of Leyden
Occupation	Pastor
Years active	1775-1832
Religion	Reformed
Church	Reformed Church of France
Ordained	1774
Writings	Paul-Henri Marron à la citoyenne Hélène-Marie Williams,
Congregations served	Walloon church of Dordrecht (1775-82), Dutch embassy in Paris (1782-88), Saint-Louis-du-Louvre (1790-1811), l'Oratorie du Louvre (1811-32)
Title	Pasteur

Paul-Henri Marron was the first Reformed pastor in Paris following the French Revolution. Born in the Netherlands to a Huguenot family, Marron first came to Paris as the chaplain of the Dutch embassy. Protestants in France had been prohibited from worshipping openly since the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. The Edict of Tolerance in 1787 gave non-Catholics the right to openly practice their religion. Marron was recruited to lead the newly tolerated Protestant community of Paris, a task he accomplished through the French Revolution, several imprisonments, the Napoleonic Wars, the Bourbon Restoration and into the July Monarchy.

Marron was born in Leyden in 1754 to a Huguenot family who had fled to the Netherlands as refugees from Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux in the Drôme department of France. He studied theology at Leyden and was ordained at the age of 20. He was called as the pastor of the Walloon church of Dordrecht in 1776.

In 1782 he moved to Paris to serve as the chaplain of the Dutch ambassador. A Protestant worship service in the French language had been allowed at the Dutch embassy since the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 providing one of the only means for French Protestants to participate in a worship service. After the Edict of Tolerance in 1787 Jean-Paul Rabaut Saint-Étienne recruited Marron to serve as the first pastor of the Protestant community of Paris.