Le Jubilé Loisy de 1927: entre histoire des religions et histoire du christianisme

From April 19th to 22nd 1927, the Congrès d’histoire du christianisme was held in honor of Alfred Loisy, who then celebrated his 70th birthday. At first Franz Cumont, Loisy’s longtime friend, belonged to the congress’s Honorary Committee, but ultimately he withdrew his support. In search of the reasons for this withdrawal, we study the correspondence between Loisy, Cumont and Paul-Louis Couchoud, organizer of the event. Thus, we come across a discussion within the laic history of Christianity in France in the 1st half of the 20th century about the competence and ideological stance of the researcher active in this field, a debate closely related to the question about the position of Christianity within the discipline of history of religion