The Paris Basis is a group of principles guiding the relationships between individual YMCAs.
Ninety-nine YMCA leaders of individual YMCAs from Europe and North America met for the first time prior to the 1855 Paris World Exposition to discuss the possibility of joining together in a federation enhance co-operation amongst individual YMCA societies. This meeting resulted in the Paris Basis which is still a guiding principle of the organization today.
Two themes resonated during the council:
- the need to respect the local autonomy of YMCA societies and
- the dogma that Christian churches are united and the YMCA is a way of manifesting that unity. (Muukkonen, 2002:85)
Read more about Paris Basis: Respect of Local Autonomy, Unity of Churches
Famous quotes containing the words paris and/or basis:
“Beloved, may your sleep be sound
That have found it where you fed.
What were all the world’s alarms
To mighty Paris when he found
Sleep upon a golden bed
That first dawn in Helen’s arms?”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Reason looks at necessity as the basis of the world; reason is able to turn chance in your favor and use it. Only by having reason remain strong and unshakable can we be called a god of the earth.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)