Paul Berron returned to Alsace, as a French citizen. His missionary calling for the East remained vivid and he pursued his work for the German mission organization Hilfsbund which sent him in 1922 on a mission to assess the Syrian situation, thanks to his French passport.
The needs of the Armenian refugees from Aleppo were tremendous but Syria was controlled by France and work within the scope of the German mission was impossible.
A new organization was needed and this is why, on 6th December 1922 “Action Chrétienne en Orient” was founded.
From the start, it was a singular mission. Its by-laws are French but its first funding stems from the German Hilfsbund. The head of the organization, its founding members and donors were mostly from Alsace but its first missionaries Hedwig Bull and Alice Humbert-Droz were, respectively, Estonian and Swiss. Numerous partners were Armenian.
The ACO had three main goals: material aid to the Armenians, spiritual work among Eastern Christians and mission among Muslims.
Spirituality would always be at the heart of Paul Berron’s and other missionaries‘ commitment. They lived a life based on prayer and testimony in an environment preoccupied by tangible and humanitarian questions affecting the lives of Armenians in the camps of Aleppo.
In the early 1930s, a center was built in Aleppo to help expand the mission and the headquarters of the ACO was established in Strasbourg Meinau: they are still active today.
