Adolphe Monod

Adolphe-Louis-Frédéric-Théodore Monod (21 January 1802 – 6 April 1856) was a French Protestant churchman. His elder brother was Frédéric Monod.

He was born in Copenhagen, where his father, Jean Monod (Sept. 5, 1765 – April 23, 1836; himself the eldest son of pastor Gaspard Joël Monod /1717-1782/ and his wife Suzanne Madeleine Puerari /1739-1799/), was a pastor of the French Reformed church and where Jean Monod met his wife and consequently Adolph's mother, Louise-Philippine de Coninck (1775-1851). Educated at Paris and Geneva, Adolph began his life-work in 1825 as founder and pastor of a Protestant church in Naples, moving to Lyon in 1827. Here his evangelical preaching, and especially a sermon on the duties of communicants (Qui doit communier?), led to his deposition by the Catholic Minister of education and religion. Instead of leaving Lyon he began to preach in a hall and then in a chapel.

On 2 September 1829 he married Hannah Honyman (1799-1868) in Lyon. They had seven children, including pastor André John William Honyman Monod (1834–1916), philanthropist and feminist Alexandrine Elisabeth Sarah Monod (1836–1912), Émilie Monod, Camille Monod (1843–1910).

In 1836 he took a professorship in the theological college of Montauban, removing in 1847 to Paris as preacher at the Oratoire. He died in Paris on 6 April 1856.

Monod was considered by some the foremost Protestant preacher of 19th-century France (e.g. Guillaume Guizot (1833-1892), son of the French statesman and Protestant historian François Guizot (1787-1874) referred to him in an article published in the “Journal des débats politiques et littéraires” (Journal of political and literary debates) on April 11, 1856, i.e. a few days after Adolphe Monod's funeral, as "one of the foremost Christian speakers of his time." He published three volumes of sermons in 1830, another, La Crédulité de l'incrédule in 1844, and two more in 1855. Two further volumes appeared after his death. One of his most influential books was the posthumous, Les Adieux d'Adolphe Monod à ses Amis et à l'Église (1857).