In every corner of the world that has been reached by the worldview on the life of faith preached by Martin Luther — at the centre of which lies God’s grace and the merit of Christ, rather than our works or money — this year of 2017 has begun with the celebrations of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.
Back in 1517, the Catholic monk and professor of theology (Doctor of the Bible) Martin Luther published 95 theses with proposals on how the medieval church ought to be reformed, including its leadership and structure, and also pointed to a practice of the church whose aim was to fill the archbishops’ coffers rather than to save souls. Luther’s ideas grew into the Reformation movement, which developed into the conviction of Protestantism and spread throughout the world.
In honour of the anniversary of the Reformation, events of greater or lesser scale are taking place in various countries in 2017. Naturally, a continuous stream of various programmes is taking place in the homeland of Martin Luther and the Reformation, Germany.
Here we will describe some of the combined events in Germany that, in honour of both the 500th anniversary of the Reformation and the strengthening of women’s rights in the Lutheran faith, were organised by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Central Germany region in the summer of 2017.
As part of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, on 12 August this year the Reformation festival was celebrated in Wittenberg together with FrauenFestTag, or Women’s Celebration Day.
The motto of the event is authentically Lutheran: “HERE WE STAND!”
The programme of the Women’s Celebration Day on 12 August was packed: from early morning, Wittenberg hosted lectures on biblical themes, discussions and excursions to the sites most significant to Luther and the Reformation in Wittenberg, and those interested could visit exhibitions.
The central event of the day was a group photograph of women pastors and women bishops in the inner courtyard of the Wittenberg church. Around 120 ordained women from 18 different countries around the world gathered for the photo session. The women who are denied ordination in their own countries were also invited to take part in the photo session, so as to express the solidarity of the wider Christian community with women who have no opportunity in their own countries to fulfil the calling given to them by God.
In the afternoon, at 3:00 p.m., in the central city square — a place flanked on one side by the statue of Martin Luther and on the other by that of his friend and fellow reformer Philipp Melanchthon — the women’s shared fellowship meal took place, attended by 500 women from various parts of the world.
During the women’s meal, women bishops took to the stage to address those present about the significance of the Reformation in the world today and about the situation in various Lutheran countries. During her address, Bishop Emerita Jāna Jēruma-Grīnberga (photo on the right) informed those present about the situation in Latvia, where the ordination of women was discontinued even though it had previously existed.
During the women’s meal we met Elisabeth Langerfeld, the granddaughter of August Bielenstein, who lives in Germany and serves as a pastor, continuing her grandfather’s family vocation (photo: from the left — Aļesja Lavrinoviča, Elisabeth Langerfeld, Rudīte Losāne).
After the women’s shared meal, a service was held in the Wittenberg Castle Church with lovely musical performances, spiritual addresses and wonderful congregational singing.
Did the 500th anniversary celebrations of the Reformation for women fit into the programme of 12 August alone? No — the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Central Germany region took care to ensure that the women who had come to Germany from other countries truly experienced a celebration.
They had arranged a rich excursion programme spanning several days that allows participants to follow in the footsteps of the Reformation, or to walk the so-called Luther’s Way (Lutherweg). It should be added that the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Central Germany region had developed several variations of travel routes so as not to overburden the same sites at the same time.
One such wonderfully developed Reformation route ran from 10 to 13 August. It began in Erfurt, the city where Luther studied, and ended in Torgau — the city where Luther’s wife Katharina von Bora is buried. Rudīte Losāne, president of the Latvian Association of Lutheran Women Theologians, as well as the website editor Aļesja Lavrinoviča, took part in this journey together with a group of women from the women’s section of the Church of Sweden, “Women in the Church of Sweden” (Kvinnor i Svenska Kyrkan).
We would like to share with you, dear reader, our experiences in the footsteps of the Reformation. There is a separate article about each city.
The places on our journey were as follows:
10 August – Eisenach (read about Eisenach here)
and the Wartburg fortress (read more here).
11 August – Erfurt (read about the significance of Erfurt in the Reformation here),
as well as Luther’s birthplace Eisleben (account here)
12 August – the world-famous Wittenberg (account here).
13 August –Torgau (the site of the first Lutheran church).
On 13 August, in a lunch tavern, we met the women bishops who, after the Women’s Celebration Day the previous day in Wittenberg, had come following in Luther’s footsteps to Torgau — to see the final dwelling place of Katharina von Bora, as well as the first Lutheran church. In the photograph — Lutheran women bishops from various parts of the world.
Photo: LLSTA