Jean Séguy

Jean Séguy (5 mar 1925 – 9 november 2007) was a French sociologist of religions.

He was born in a Catholic family from south-western France. In 1970, he became a doctor of Letters, specialized in English literature. Under the influence of Henri Desroche he moved from literature to the Sociology of religion and spent the rest of his career as research director of the CNRS. In 1973, his book Les Conflits du dialogue, on the ecumenical activities of the smaller Christian denominations, consecrated him as a skilled sociologist of religious minorities.

Influenced by the work of Max Weber and Ernst Troeltsch, he was particularly interested in cults, religious conflicts and Christianity (especially Protestantism and its nonconformist sects, Seventh-day Adventism). In 1977, he was the author of a notable thesis on the Anabaptists and Mennonites. He was also member of the École des hautes études en sciences sociales. He served as editor-in-chief of the journal Archives de sciences sociales des religions between 1980 and 1988. He died in Liancourt, Oise, aged 82.