Youth and formative years Jacques Martin was born on 24 June 1906 in
Sainte-Colombe, Rhône where his father was teaching. His grandfather was a
methodist minister. From 1923 to 1927, he studied at the
Protestant Faculty of Theology in Paris. There he became friends with
André Trocmé, who was a few years older than him. He also met another student,
Henri Roser, whose militant pacifist and
internationalist ideas shook French Protestant society of that time. Jacques Martin then became a pacifist himself, and wished to contribute personally to international reconciliation, starting with France and Germany. His failing health ensured his definitive exemption from military service before the start of WWII. Jacques Martin turned each of his trials into a platform to advertise for conscience objection. His defence counsel was solicitor and socialist MP
André Philip, who called upon leading intellectuals like
Jean Guéhenno or
Marc Sangnier and upon representatives of the
French Human Rights League. As early as 1928, Martin had temporarily given up on his career in church ministry because of the staunch opposition of institutional protestantism towards his pacifist and anti-militaristic positions. In 1938, still unable to become a pastor, he accepted a position of administrative and human resources director in a silk stockings manufacturing plant in
Ganges, Hérault.
War years In the wake of the first
Vichy anti-Jewish legislation by
Marshall Pétain’s government on 3 October 1940, Jacques Martin decided jointly with Ganges’ pastor Élie Gounelle to call for a regional meeting of all Protestant pastors in the area, in order to pray and reflect on the new situation, including the apparent support apparently extended to the Vichy government by the church authorities – including, at that early stage, by the president of the
Protestant Federation of France, pastor
Marc Boegner. According to Jacques Martin's own account, the day was “dedicated to the problem of anti-Semitism or rather to anti-Semitism and the
Bible”. A second such meeting, in November 1942, would be organised to respond to the new situation created by the roundups of 26 August 1942 in the southern zone of France. In both of these meetings, Jacques Martin shared a very well-informed and accurate documentation which allowed pastors to prepare themselves for resistance to the anti-Semitic policy of the Vichy regime. At the same time, the Martins had joined the
CIMADE in close cooperation with
Madeleine Barot. They intervened in several ways: supplying packages with food or warm clothes for the
Gurs internment camp internees, sheltering fleeing Jews and routing them towards safe caches or appropriate underground escape routes, forging identity cards and ration tickets for the hidden Jews. They also hid Jacques’ brother-in-law, pastor André Trocmé when he had to go underground in their family house in
Drôme. On 22 June 1944, Jacques Martin was reported to the police by his direct neighbour. He was arrested by the
Milice and detained in
Montpellier’s prison. Strangely, the local Resistance managed to negotiate his release in exchange for a flock of 1,000 sheep. He was freed three days before the liberation of his area. During the war years he became friends with historian
Jules Isaac who had sought refuge in Ganges.
Lay and clerical ministries After the war, Jacques Martin was back in touch with the « Social Christians », a mainly protestant movement seeking to join together evangelism and care for the poorer classes of society; after meeting with Élie Gounelle at “
Musée Social “ (a Parisian think tank), he prepared the relaunching of the movement and of its magazine, the “Revue du Christianisme Social”. He also organised the 25th Christian Social Congress in Paris. In 1948, he participated in the creation of the French branch of the
International Council of Christians and Jews, called les Amitiés judéo-chrétiennes (A.J.C. - Jewish Christian Friendships) whose first president was catholic theologian
Henri-Irénée Marrou, while Jacques Martin was both the first vice-president and the AJC bulletin's editor. While continuing with its commitments with the CIMADE, A.J.C., and Social Christians, Jacques Martin still didn't apply to become a pastor although the institutional opposition had then faded away. (Henri Roser was for instance now in charge of a parish.) He preferred to experience the position of a "committed layman". From 1947 to 1950, he ran a bookshop in
Le Chambon-sur-Lignon where he also taught Latin at the
Collège Cévenol, then from 1950 to 1966 he ran another bookshop in
Lyon. On 29 March 1966, he welcomed
Martin Luther King Jr. on his visit in Lyon. Finally he felt the need to "bind the sheaf" and was ordained on 9 January 1966 by the
French Reformed Church (after a last hesitation from the institution, as the candidate is already 60!) and took a position with the Geneva state church. He is put in charge of the creation of a new parish in a newly built area of the greater Geneva. This parish is now known as the Centre Communautaire Protestant du Lignon. Having retired in 1973, he still performed pastoral tasks in Mens from 1973 to 1977, and finally took full retirement in the area of Die, still acting as a substitute pastor in case of vacancies). He died in Die on 23 July 2001. His wife had died 5 years earlier on 30 September 1996. They had had six children: André (1934-1934), Violaine (born 1937), Daniel (born 1937), Amy-Christiane (1939-1945), Jean-Marc (born 1941) et Ariane (born 1950). ==Distinctions==