Brother Roger Schutz, the son of a Swiss Protestant pastor, was killed as he prayed during a gathering of 2500 young pilgrims at the community's Burgundy centre. Police said they had arrested a 36-year-old Romanian woman, thought to be mentally disturbed.

The acting head of the Geneva-based World Council of Churches, Geneviève Jacques, said in a tribute on 17 August: "His ceaseless search for an authentic ecumenical dialogue between believers went far beyond any institutional barriers, and he achieved a particular resonance with young people."

Pope Benedict XVI said from his summer residence at Castel Gandolfo: "This most sad news strikes me even more because just yesterday I received a letter from him." It was "a very moving and loving letter" to say he was with the pontiff and those who would be with him in Cologne for the 16-21 August World Youth Days, during the Pope's upcoming visit to Germany.

The president of the Conference of European Churches and of the French Protestant Federation (FPF), Pastor Jean-Arnold de Clermont in an interview with Ecumenical News International spoke of "consternation at this fatal madness". He said "We would have wished a peaceful death for Brother Roger."

De Clermont said: "We need to pay homage to the work on the liturgy made by the Community. The Taizé hymns are, indeed, known and sung throughout the world."

The general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation, Ishmael Noko, said: "This terrible event takes on a broader dimension as we witness the steady increase of violence in today's world. Forces of violence are moving among us and within us, from which we must pray fervently to be delivered. Taizé is, and remains, an embodiment of this prayer."

From England, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, said: "This is an indescribable shock. Brother Roger was one of the best loved Christian leaders of our time, and hundreds of thousands will be feeling his loss very personally, and remembering him in prayer and gratitude."

In 1940, Roger Schutz founded the Taizé Community, an ecumenical monastic community which advanced Protestant male monasticism, noted Pastor de Clermont. From the 1960s, thousands of young people, coming initially from Europe then from the whole world, would attend Taizé regularly. Brother Roger was very close to Jean-Paul II when he was pope and he also paid close attention to Eastern European countries during the communist period. He frequently visited Cracow at the time Jean-Paul II was an archbishop there.

In his old aged the Taizé founder became frail and needed to use a wheel chair, but in April he attended the funeral of Jean-Paul II where he received the Catholic Eucharist from the hands of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who would become Pope Benedict XVI.

Relations between Taizé and French Protestants, however, went through some difficult phases. A member of the FPF, the community of Taizé withdrew for a while during the 1970s. The conversion to Catholicism and secret ordination to the priesthood of Max Thurian, the right hand man of Brother Roger, stunned Protestants.

Eight years ago, Brother Roger had designated his successor, according to the rules of the community and nominated a German Catholic, Brother Alois, aged 51, who left Cologne to return to Taizé on hearing the news of Brother Roger's death.