The Protestant Rome Luther City Revisits the Reformation
Its impossible to walk through Wittenberg, also known as "Luther City," without stumbling across reminders of Martin Luther. Theres the "Luther oak," then Luther Street, which leads to the Luther House. Along the way are restaurants offering a "Luther menu" (choice of meat or fish) and a travel agency touting a tour boat named after the city, which couples can book for their weddings. The bars serve Luther beer; the bakery has Luther bread. There's a huge memorial to Luther in the main marketplace. And the city is crawling with guides decked out in long frocks à la Luther. The city has been completely Lutherized.
Wittenberg, in fact, is as important to the history of Protestantism as Rome is for the Catholic Church. But theres an essential difference: While Rome is full of Catholics, less than 10 percent of Wittenbergs 46,000 citizens are Protestants.
The city has been the venue for a handful of miracles, such as apparitions of Mary or the comeback made by Russian Orthodoxy after 70 years of Soviet suppression. But in today's Wittenberg, the real miracle to behold is something more like a miracle of disbelief: Luther cant be avoided here, but the beliefs he stood for are easy to miss. An official from the organization responsible for the city's Protestant churches describes the ironic tension by saying its "a tension that isnt always easy to take."
But all that is set to change. This year marks a half-millennium since Luther arrived in Wittenberg as a student and a monk. In 1517, he nailed his theses to the door of the citys Castle Church, launching the Protestant Reformation. In honor of those anniversaries, the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) has declared a "Luther Decade," providing a sort of 10-year plan for German Protestantism.
But 500 years after Luther, Protestants seem to be longing for the things he himself called into question -- ceremony, ritual and all the religious trappings. Higher-ups in the EKD are no longer content to watch debates about religion revolve around Islam and the pope, and theyre not content to watch mosques erected in the Protestant heartland while there are still no places for Protestant pilgrimage. Their goal is to remake Wittenberg into a true Protestant Rome.
'Lighthouse Keepers'
No one personifies this desire to have Protestantism play as an equal among world religions so clearly as Wolfgang Huber, 66, chairman of the EKD Council. Now bishop for the states of Berlin and Brandenburg, Huber was once part of more alternative movements within the church. He organizes a traditional "bishops' dinner" and is happiest when he's leading services in the Berlin Cathedral, Germanys largest Protestant church.
Huber has also made Wittenberg his top priority. This year on Reformation Day, which falls on Oct. 31, Huber will award the "Martin Luther Medal" for the first time "for particular services to German Protestantism" -- a sort of "employee-of-the-month" for Protestants.
Protestants are doubters by nature, but Huber would like them to talk more about their beliefs and less about their doubts. He wants them to spread the Gospel and reacquaint themselves with missionary work. "Wittenberg should be a Protestant lighthouse," Huber says, "a symbolic place." With Wittenberg, he wants to show that it's possible to "grow against the trend." Hes bringing specialists on religious growth from all over the country to this important front in his church-development battle, calling Protestant nuns from Bavaria and establishing a high-level prelate in the city.
An Exercise in 'Self-Deception'?
But will the campaign work? Is it possible to bring belief back to a city where tradition has been lost, to a place in the former East Germany, where the Communist government drove religion underground? Will the church manage to proselytize to the former East German citizens within its home borders the way its missionaries once did in foreign lands?
Friedrich Schorlemmer, for one, who is still the most prominent preacher in the city, is skeptical. He thinks trying to go against the trend will lead to cheap tricks and "self-deception." Then he starts to criticize everything he sees as being wrong with the EKD and its "lighthouse keepers."
Yet the EKD mission program is already in full swing. The inauguration ceremony for Prelate Stephan Dorgerloh, 42, suggested a new institutional self-confidence. It was a grand event in the Castle Church, almost reminiscent of something done in a more Catholic style. The gathering also inaugurated the "Luther Decade," and even Germanys interior minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, was present. Yes, congregations are shrinking, Schäuble declared. But hes not a defeatist: A strong, confident Protestantism can be very important for our society.
An interior minister responsible for religion as well? Here, in the former East Germany, such talk awakens certain troubling associations. One remembers East Germany's State Secretaries for Church Matters or to Erich Honecker, head of East Germany between 1971 and 1989, who also acted as head of a state Martin Luther Committee on the occasion of the reformers 500th birthday in 1983. The East German government is gone, but its reverberations are still felt.
Preacher Meets Management Consultant
Stephan Dorgerloh has taken up quarters in the top floor of Wittenbergs old town hall. He wears a suit and tie and is sitting in a black leather armchair. There are no crosses hanging in the room. Did he forget that detail? No, says Dorgerloh, he just hasnt finished setting up yet. In his fancy office, he looks more like a marketing strategist than a minister. Sometimes he speaks like one, too, with talk of new concepts, such as strengthening strengths, and a desire for the church to take its offers to the marketplace. All thats missing is the PowerPoint presentation.
Dorgerloh has also analyzed the market: His sights are on the educated classes, the ones lost to the church during communist times. He knows that many pastors grew comfortable in home prayer circles after the government had banished them from public life. He knows how hard it is for them to take advantage of their freedom now.
Dorgerloh's analysis is correct, but his plans for Wittenberg are rather grandiose. He wants to create a center for sermon culture and a Protestant campus. Hes currently holding talks with the state of Saxony-Anhalt on behalf of the EKD, which wants to have Luthers Castle Church -- whose deed is currently held by the state -- transferred to the EKD by 2017. No half-measures; thats his motto.
A Hard Sell
Just meters away from Dorgerlohs pious ivory tower, the same break in tradition he bemoans can be seen firsthand. Entering the House of History, it become quite clear just how foreign the EKDs religious development plans are for many people here. In this museum, you can smell and taste East German history. It's an exhibit of daily life in the Honecker's republic made up of floral wallpaper, asymmetrical tables, homemade shelves and handkerchiefs worn by the Pioneers, the countrys socialist youth organization. Its a life without spirituality, without a cross and without a church. Instead, there's plenty of cheap schnapps and photos of army officers drinking.
A former East German leads tour groups through a replica of an old grocery store set up on the museums first floor. He shows under the counter goods true to the originals, rare goods such as ketchup or red wine from Bulgaria, which were hidden out of public view. The exhibit could have also included West German books, as East German citizens, thirsty for knowledge, stole them from the Leipzig Book Fair to help make sure that they could keep up with conversations when they had visitors from the West. Another "hidden good" could have also been the pins worn by members of the Young Congregation, the Protestant Churchs youth group, which was persecuted by the East German government.
Many of his colleagues were "traumatized" by this history, says Christian Beuchel, the museum's director. They can all tell tales of people who asked if Mary was Jesus wife or of teachers who told their students that faith was "unscientific." Even after the fall of the communist government, it took a lot of courage for clergy member to enter classrooms because they felt like they were entering enemy territory.
A Unique Sense of Mission
Armin Pra, 44, is lucky that his knowledge of East Germany is almost completely secondhand. He comes from Hesse, a western German state, but he has been a minister in an area around Wittenberg since 1993. His bright red truck speeds through Wittenberg, a city whose reality bears little relation to the EKDs grand plans. In Pras opinion, many of those plans are mostly just for show. He finds the idea that the Castle Church should be taken into church ownership absurd. People will think that a church belongs to the church anyway, he says, not to mention the future costs. Then he laughs and steps on the gas.
While studying theology, Pra focused on missiology, the study of missions. "Im certainly in the right place here, he says. Pra oversees 15 congregations, 13 churches and 20 pieces of property. Although his job is to look after the buildings condition, its actually the people who are much more important to him. And here, especially, hes much in demand. Hardly anything works on its own anymore, Pra laments. He drives slowly over the cobblestones, and then he brings the truck to a halt. He's arrived in Straach, a village a few miles outside of Wittenberg. Its a town where everything is gone: Theres no rail connection, no post office, no school, no shops. Even the ATM has been removed. But were still here, says Pra, and we cant just give up on a place like this.
Pras mission concept is one that makes do without any sort of target-group analysis. In fact, it consists mostly just of being there. He says a few words at the firemens festival, organizes puppet shows or stops by the fishing club. He arranges social evenings for the congregations instead of the church services that only frustrate him, when no one shows up. And then, at some point, Pra suggest, people will come up to him during these events and ask questions, such as what values they should raise their children with and what counts. Giving answers then, he says, "is what mission is really about.
Pra relates stories of his various small successes. There are the teachers who placed orders for whole sets of Bibles and an organization that worked to preserve the village church. Many of the groups members didnt actually belong to the congregation, but all were committed to saving their church because it had become a part of their local identity. Later, some even had their children baptized in the church theyd helped to save, although they themselves had never been baptized. It seems to be one way to start healing the wounds left by two dictatorships in a row.
And aside from the mission campaign, theres something else new happening at the edge of Wittenberg: Highly visible letters on the side of a communist-era apartment block read Protestant Elementary School. Grit Förster, 45, is the school's director. She first trained as a teacher in East Germany and only came to religion as an adult. In 2001, when dedicated parents first brought the Protestant school to life, Förster had 13 students. They were parents for whom passing on values was especially important, she says.
At first, Förster was the only teacher; she was responsible for everything from textbooks to trash cans. The schools existence initially caused some smirks, and the doors had hardly opened when officials came by to carry out an inspection. But, since then, the school has been accredited, and now 12 teachers teach 147 students.
Förster can explain quite simply what is Christian about her school: Whats Protestant about it, she says, is being together. That sounds fairly banal, but everyone who lives here understands what she means.
Yet, in an area where a lack of religious commitment has become something of a commitment in its own right, Försters school is an exception. And that applies even for the Protestant movements most sacred locations.
A Proud Resistance
A woman with a friendly smile sells the admission tickets for the Luther House, the former monastery where Martin Luther would go on to live with his family. She can explain Luthers history well -- but not his present. He has no meaning for her except, of course, for his relevance to her job. She says shes 40 years old and an atheist. But then she adds, You know, the socialist education. Anyway, she suggests, atheists are the most tolerant. There are so many people, Catholics and Protestants both, wanting to convert them.
Sure, shes been working here a few years, she admits, but will she become religious? No, she says, thats just not going to happen.
