Helplessness and resignation?

Jane's diary, 14 December 1989, written in the train from Cologne to Brussels

What a crazy few days, writing Christmas post, washing, buying, packing ... 10 December was international human rights day, Friedrich Schorlemmer received the Ossietzky prize on behalf of Demokratischer Aufbruch. In Czechoslovakia, the Communist Party is now in a minority in the new government, Husak's final act as president was to swear in the new ministers, some who have been in jail until as little as a fortnight ago. Change seems even faster there than here in the GDR. Dubcek or Havel for president? All the shops were open in Wittenberg this afternoon, a Sunday, the 2nd advent, a cold clear day with yellow winter sunshine and a Father Christmas being driven in a horse and trap along the main street throwing out sweets to children.

I was full of cold for my last few days in Wittenberg. On the Sunday I made it to church. The church was cold and the sermon somehow missed the mark but the BBC Radio 4 service was coming from the United States and I was back in time to hear Barbara Harris finishing her sermon and then celebrating the Eucharist, the first woman to be elected a bishop in the US Epsicopal Church. That was special.

I got an exit visa in Wittenberg but when I got to the border in Berlin the border guards couldn't tell me whether or not my new entry visa was there. I crossed into the West with two of the other students who like me were in Berlin for a meeting with students from our sister seminary from West Germany, Soest. The other two went off to get their church Begrüssungsgeld from West Berlin (hard currencyto which otherwise East Germans had no legal access). The people there wanted to give me some too - quite seriously. Very odd!!! Then we set off on the 54 Bus for Spandau, which I knew very well from the gap year that I had spent working in a church-run children's home at the Johannesstift there. It was strange seeing the Christmas market in Spandau gain, just as it had been eight years ago, and the kitsch almost worse then the stuff in Wittenberg. Then out to an evening with the Soest lot at a Pizzeria at Savignyplatz in West Berlin where red wine was consumed. I stayed over in West Berlin.

The next morning back to the border, where, amazingly a visa was waiting for me - and free of charge!! But the Polish visa office in East Berlin was closed - I needed to a get Polish visa for a trip our group was to make to Poland in the New Year. Then to the church headquarters in Augustrasse still a little worse for wear from the night before. I managed to make it back to the Soest meeting at the Auferstehungsgemeinde. I found myself in one group suddenly feeling like an easterner in a strange sort of way, chafing against the wishy-washy western liberalism. The crux of the question is not whether the we feel the "experiment" of socialism in the GDR should go on, but what are we willing to give up, we privileged Westerners and the answer is, "not a lot".

Earlier in the day at the foreigner's registration office at the police in East Berlin, I interpreted for a very sweet but rather clueless Australian who kept trying to pay in the wrong currency. This then led the overworked woman behind the counter to extend my residence permit until June 1989 - in my hungover state I didn't notice, but later in the evening the border guards didn't seem to mind too much, "just make sure that you get round to registering properly"!

Berlin was so wet and disgusting that I simply wanted out and away. On the train I thought back again to the German question, our sense of helplessness and resignation, no new ideas in the face of its inevitability and the lure of the Deutschmark. Whatever happened to "We're staying here!" On the train the guard noticed my ticket had been bought in GDR Marks in East Berlin and didn't ask me to pay the supplement for the InterCity train, it's strange being a token GDR citizen.

Watergate in the GDR ...

Jane's diary, dateline Wittenberg, 9 December 1989
So much is happening, it's almost impossible to keep up. Honecker's under arrest, among many others. Krenz has gone - it was very obvious in Modrow's visit to Moscow and Gorbi - "oh yes, I almost forgot, I've brought the head of state with me". Stasi buildings all over the GDR are being stormed, most things seem to have been burned, shredded or otherwise disposed of.

Schorlemmer was heckled for the first time at the prayers for renewal, speaking on the theme of the "Vaterland". In front of the masses it's almost impossible to speak of Zweistaatlichkeit, a two-state-solution. Friedrich ended with the Olof Palme idea of a demilitarised independent Germany. Unity not reunification. The consensus now seems to be that reunification will come, the major problem being the timetable.

The SED extraordinary general party congress has decided to change the party's name and have elected Gregor Gysi as leader. No new name as yet, just not the old one. From 1 January, visa regulations and exchange regulations for West Germans and West Berliners are to be lifted - some are pushing for this to come into force from 23 December in time for Christmas.

More and more corruption is coming to light. Schalk-Golodkowsi has given himself up in West Berlin. His lawyer Vogel has also been arrested but (I think) set free. Some seem to think he knows far too much to be prosecuted - he could cause other heads to roll and not just on this side of the border. It's like living through a much more lively version of Watergate.

Back to Reformation in Wittenberg ...

October ended on this blog with the first extract from Jane's diary of Reformation and Revolution in Wittenberg on the anniversary of Martin Luther's posting of the 95 Theses. In the meantime the site of the New York Times is carrying an article - In Wittenberg, cries for new Reformation on date of old one - written from Wittenberg on 31 October 1989 by Serge Schmemann.

It was difficult to imagine what Martin Luther, lying in his tomb under the cold stone floor, might have thought of the throng that packed every medieval inch of the castle church on the anniversary of the day in 1517 when he tacked his 95 theses to the door and so began the Reformation.

That the church was packed on Reformation Day was actually something of a coincidence, although it was briefly noted by the pastor and some participants. It was also Tuesday evening, and for the last three weeks the people of Wittenberg have gathered in the castle church in rapidly growing numbers to take part in the new grass-roots movement for change.

More than 3,000 jammed into the church on this drizzly evening, and an equal number stood on the cobbled court outside to listen on loudspeakers to the demands, announcements and prayers that have become the daily fare of the latest Eastern European land swept up by the winds of change.

Schmemann has written his own book-length account of the collapse of communism here.

The quiet before the storm ?

Jane's diary, Wittenberg, 29 November 1989
It is cold. Last night, the church was full for the prayers for renewal but not as full as we have become used to. Afterwards they went "on a walk" to the local headquarters of the Stasi, now renamed National Security or something. This morning Frau. B talked of ministers clearing their desks and whether they come across decisions they would rather un-take. Perhaps this pre-Christmas calm is just the stillness before the next round of wild events. Meanwhile things move on apace in Czechoslovakia - a petition is being planned here if the GDR government does send official apologies to the Czechs and the Slovaks for the happenings of 1968 ...

Meanwhile, of course the theory that there are only 25 people in the world rools on. Daniel Cattau, for whom I was interpreting a few days ago, and Stephen worked together on the press desk at the Lutheran World Federation assembly in Budapest in 1984.

Thinking about those who have gone before

Jane's diary, dateline 26 November 1989, Wittenberg (Totensonntag)
Today is Totensonntag, the Sunday to commemorate those who have died. Outside is is snowing, blowing up quite a blizzard. Strange to think that at the beginning of the month I was still walking around bare-legged. Mild autumn has changed to a bitter winter as quickly as the political changes.

Wittenberg looks pretty in the snow, even more mediaeval than it is. At the last demonstration at the Marktplatz it was so foggy you couldn't see from side to the other, Luther's and Melanchthon's statutes were lit up and the loudspeakers were on as usual - it seemed as though the statues themselves were speaking. With all the fog, the icy weather and the voices seemingly speaking out of nowhere, Birgit said she falt as though she was living through a Shakespeare play. They discussed making Friedrich Schorlemmer an honourary citizen of the town.

Apparently on the television the other night (the first live talk show broadcast on GDR television!) Schorlemmer said, "I have been turned from an enemy of the state to a partner". It was interesting to interpret for his interview with Daniel Cattau today, I'm not sure about the picture he likes to paint of himself - certainly he is very literary and well-read and heavily influenced by Tillich, Brecht and so on, but it all seems so very slightly pretentious. One of seven children who needs a crowd! I feel he painted a rather rosy picture of the role of the church in the future and how it will be able to continue its prophetic role.

It's been a time of coincidences for me - first bumping into Keith Forecast last week who had been at Mansfield just the previous evening. And then turning round in the restaurant in West Berlin and seeing our family friends, Theo and Sigrid. Yesterday Daniel arrived in Wittenberg, writing for a US Lutheran paper, a few years ago he interviewed Jan Womer at Mansfield.

I've got used to the idea I was in West Berlin last weekend. But that clear sunshine and fast pace of life seems a time away from the muffled snowy streets of Wittenberg today. I thought about Steve, I wanted to sort out the existential questions to do with getting married and living together, he was preoccupied with the great political happenings. Of course we sat down and tried to sort it all out but there was so little time and so much to say. I have this need for certinty and Steve is so much more sanguine. In just over a fortnight I shall be packing to go home for Christmas. Time is really racing by.

Briefly today I thought of my dead ancestors - rumbustious Stanley Hawley, impeccably turned out, a man who in middle age (he never really seemed "old" to me) showed great patience and love to his two grandchildren. He died carefully and tidily, all his affairs sorted out, his house clean and tidy, during one week's holiday three years ago. I miss him dearly, his love of life, his palpable enjoyment of parties and celebrations, his ability to get on with different generations. It was right that his funeral was a party in the garden on a late summer day.

He and my grandmother Elsie Bennett played a big role in babysitting us and being around in our lives. They had already made a mark on the town we lived in through their involvement in music and shows. My grandmother's wide and very pretty simile, her competitive spirit playing cribbage - even beating my dad at scrabble - but most of all her beautiful soprano voice, rich soaring and so easy on the ears - "the gentle, the gentle sounding lute". I was 16 when she died, the early morning 'phone call came and I felt relief for her and for us all, as well as loss. It had taken a long time.

Martin Stranz my German grandfather was born in 1890, a completely different world. His death shocked me, and shook me early on Saturday morning. I wept in my father's arms and felt gult, "but I had only just begun to love him". He represents all that is intellectual but also a love of the good things in life - his brother-in-law in his will left him red wine to pour into his soup! Part of the money I have used to come here came from the money he gave us, his proud socialism and pacifism came from real experience. I wish I had been able to hold an adult conversation with him. Perhaps my interest in Germany comes as a result of dealing with his death. He was 85 when he died and had lived through two world wars. Despite his age, all of us where unprepared for his death, suddenly on holiday in Cromer after a good meal with friends, Probably he insisted on paying the bill. He only allowed us to celebrate his 85th birthday if he could pay.

Kate Guttmann his wife I only knew from a picture where I am sitting on her bed, she lived to see her first grandchild. She was very unkindly referred to as the Schlange - the snake - or the Hexe - the witch - by her children. From my other grandmother's one meeting with her it sounds as if she was the quiet one in a family of extroverts. The weeks that my grandfather was in Sachsenhausen concentration camp must have been difficult for her. She worried about illegally smuggling her wedding ring out of Germany when they left. Probably she found the move to Britain more difficult that the others. A sensitive, artistic woman. Perhaps we may call a daughter Kate.

I think of you as I write this Stave. Tears are streaming down my face as I do my Trauerarbeit, my mourning, as the Germans like to call it. Death has treated me more kindly than you and not taking my family away from me unexpectedly. I shall stop now and sort out my ever untidy desk - it seems to travel from country to country with me.

A Mighty Fortress Indeed ...

On 26 November, Jane was interpreting for Daniel Cattau, a US journalist, in Wittenberg. This article from the Los Angeles Times was one of the articles he wrote about his visit:

A Mighty Fortress Indeed - East Germany: As pariahs in a communist society, churches developed an independent niche--and nurtured a civil reformation.

By DANIEL CATTAU,

Daniel Cattau, former director of the Lutheran Council News Bureau in New York, was recently in East Germany. (Los Angeles Times, December 16, 1989)

The Castle Church in Lutherstadt Wittenberg, where Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses in 1517, was refurbished in 1983, the 500th anniversary of the reformer's birth. Near the top of the tall, white church tower is now a gold band inscribed, Ein Feste Berg ist Unsere Gott-- the first words to the battle hymn of the Reformation, "A Mighty Fortress is Our God."

When the local leaders of the Socialist Unity (Communist) Party saw this impressive statement of faith, they asked church leaders what words from Luther might be appropriate for their building. The church leaders suggested the beginning of the hymn's second stanza: "No strength of ours can match His might."

This story accurately depicts the role of the East German Protestant churches in socialism: quiet opposition with a clear distinction between what belongs to the church and what to the state.

For the most part, the church's role in toppling the monolithic Communist rule has been ignored in the litany of other factors: Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of glasnost , Hungary's decision to open its border, the great numbers of East Germans fleeing to the West, the opening of the Berlin Wall and the country's woeful economic, educational and ecological situation.

But in talks I've had with dozens of East Germans, it was clear that the church played--and continues to play--a critical role in the reformation of society. In an interview at the Luther House in Wittenberg, Friedrich Schorlemmer, a theologian and leading spokesman for the Democratic Awakening, drew a parallel between the Reformation and the current upheaval.

"Luther said the church is only the church when it always reforms itself, and lets itself be reformed," said Schorlemmer, who has already been transformed from an enemy of the state into a media star. "Socialism is only socialism if it's capable of being renewed."

After World War II and the division of Germany, church membership in heavily Protestant East Germany declined from more than 80% of the population to about 30% today. The government thought it had dealt a fatal blow by enforcing strict church-state separation, eliminating state funding and teaching only Marxism and Leninism in schools. Added to that was a heavy dose of oppression.

The severing of church-state ties, however, was a blessing for the three territorial Lutheran and five united Lutheran and Reformed churches that comprise a loose, 5-million-member Federation of Evangelical Churches.

Until the Berlin Wall was erected in 1961, the East German churches had close ties with the wealthier, state-supported churches in the Federal Republic. In 1968, these formal ties were severed and the East German churches, after a long period of confrontation, moved toward being a church in socialism--but, as its leaders point out, not a church of socialism.

Remarkably, the church had found a niche in society by the late 1970s that was to grow into a full-scale spiritual and political movement a decade later: It was a "free room," as the Germans say, where church and non-church people could discuss issues rarely brought up outside the home.

It began with peace groups discussing East-West tensions and the redeployment of missiles in the two Germanys, and grew to discussions of human rights and social justice, the environment, military service, freedom of travel, press freedom and free elections. The church also played a key role in uncovering vote-rigging in last May's local elections, encouraging people to stay in East Germany and spawning many of the leaders of the opposition parties and groups.

In 1982 the Nicholas Church and later the Thomas Church in Leipzig began what looked, at first, to be innocuous Monday-night prayer services; it was after these services that 200,000 took to the street in October. These prayer services and demonstrations were soon replicated throughout the land of Luther, Bach, Schiller and Goethe.

"There was no other free room in society," for opposition groups, said Gerhard Thomas, editor of The Church, a newspaper of the Berlin-Brandenburg Evangelical Church. "The revolution was so peaceful from the side of the demonstrators--that was the spirit of the church. The spirit of the revolution was the spirit of the church."

In Wittenberg, a small university town in Luther's day but now a quasi-industrial city of 50,000 people, townspeople complained in the local paper that the demonstrators had left a mess in the Market Place in front of Luther's statue: Wax from prayer vigil candles covered the stones on the street.

Albrecht Steinwachs, a local pastor, gave perhaps the best testimony to the role of the church when he wrote in response, "I would rather see 1,000 drops of candle wax on the Market Place than one drop of blood."

Trying to find a way into the future

Jane's diary: Wittenberg, 16 November 1989

I'm completely wound up. I am waiting to travel to Berlin. I'm waiting for a phone call at midday from Steve. For two days I've been like this, moods swinging back and forth. I've had to completely reorganize everything to get to Berlin. I was at the police station this morning. I can get out of the GDR, but, unlike the East Germans, I can't get back in again, because I only have a single-entry visa. Steve: what are we going to do if we can't meet? I really think I shall crack. It's three months since we got engaged. Dear God, I hope this madcap plan works out ...

So much has happened but I feel in such a whirl - totally emotionalised. I want to laugh and cry and scream. The atmosphere is changing a bit. I'm not quite sure if all these groups are going to keep up the momentum, now the wall is down, at least psychologically. The prayers for renewal on Tuesday were still full at both churches - suddenly now that the crisis point is for the time being over, people are are suddenly able to pray, not just for themselves as has been the case in past weeks.

Suddenly we remembered that Romania exists. We lit a candle for the person facing the death penalty there. We sent a telegram to the Embassy. People prayed for the schools, for the environment, for not too much greed for western money. One of the students had found swastikas sprayed on the walls in Görlitz - we prayed for the fascists. The emotion was really very different at the service, not so tense or brittle. In some ways that was a shame, the tears didn't prickle behind my eyes, my voice didn't break with emotion. Perhaps a certain amount of normalisation would be good. A time to reassess, think hard, give thanks for all that has happened and try and see a way into the future.

The Bürgermeister has resigned, at the demonstration later in the square they gave his deputy a hard time. The new Bürgermeister will be elected today. As a result of standing up for so long in very cold churches and then sitting in a Trabant for over an hour my back is in all sorts of mess. Very painful. I drank a glass of wine with two of the women in Wittenberg. We listened to Mahler's 4th symphony and tried to sort out our feelings and worries about the incredible almost miraculous events of the weekend. When will the price reform come? Feelings are very ambivalent. Everyone wants to be able to exchange GDR money for western money but will it still be possible to afford bread at home? Things are going to get worse before they get better, that's for sure. Oh dear, that sounds so Thatcherite and smug.

Thorns in the side

Posted by Jane (from the Stranzblog) :

I first heard the passage below being read aloud in the chapel in the Predigerseminar in 1989. In the midst of the huge political upheaval of East Germany's peaceful revolution, Gabriele who led that morning's "Andacht" simply let the text speak for itself.

I was surprised and pleased to find it again the other day at the beginning to Stephen Cottrell's splendid little book "Hit the Ground Kneeling". I'm not sure I've come across it in any of our Sunday lectionaries, which is a shame. I have used it in some youth work and training sessions with elders though.

Reading it through again now I wonder about whether bramble or thorn bush would be my favoured translation and I must go and check whether the Hebrew word is the same as the bush which burned and was not consumed in Exodus and whether the Septuagint translation for thornbush is then picked up in the gospel term for crown of thorns. This is how linguists think I suppose - even when they have a bus to catch and must write fast!

None of the other trees wanted to give anything up in order to sway over the other trees - not the olive its oil, not the fig its sweet fruit, not the vine its glorious juice and wine. So the thorn bush, the bramble, accepts. The thornbush is an uncomfortable symbol of humility in the Bible, it is about a different kind of leadership. Today reading this text I was struck rather by the way the supposedly greater trees don't want to take up office, they want to hold onto their current roles and riches and place in the scheme of things and not chance the risk or humility of leadership. Them holding on to their power and riches and roles makes the leadership role of the brambly thorn bush yet more difficult. Easier to be a celebrity than a leader? Easier to hold on to riches than follow vocation?
A fascinating and powerful parable which is deeply prophetic.

The parable and prophecy of the trees in Judges 9
The trees once went out
to anoint a king over themselves.
So they said to the olive tree,
“Reign over us.”
The olive tree answered them,
“Shall I stop producing my rich oil
by which gods and mortals are honoured,
and go to sway over the trees?”
Then the trees said to the fig tree,
“You come and reign over us.”
But the fig tree answered them,
“Shall I stop producing my sweetness
and my delicious fruit,
and go to sway over the trees?”
Then the trees said to the vine,
“You come and reign over us.”
But the vine said to them,
“Shall I stop producing my wine
that cheers gods and mortals,
and go to sway over the trees?”
So all the trees said to the bramble,
“You come and reign over us.”
And the bramble said to the trees,
“If in good faith you are anointing me king over you,
then come and take refuge in my shade;
but if not, let fire come out of the bramble
and devour the cedars of Lebanon.”

Breaking bread on the morning of 9 November

Jane: On the morning of 9th November 1989 I was one of the twenty or so ministry students at the Predigerseminar in Wittenberg. We had 10 day modules allowing for a four day weekend beginning after lunch on the Thursday. The Thursday mornings were for our "Auswertungsrunde". Believe me you cannot really understand the groan that this even now inspires in me unless you have been through this kind of evaluation with German theologians who are all direct and critical of the methodologies and content of what and how they are learning ... it is quite indescribable. Of the 25 of us sitting around the evaluation table that morning four people were founding members of three of the different new political parties in the GDR, several had taken part in the big Berlin demonstration on October 7th, one of our lecturers had been a speaker at the huge demonstration in Berlin on November 4th. These were some of the biggish fish in the small GDR pond.
Everyone around the table knew someone who had been imprisoned, several had seen the violence first hand. Together we had begun the prayers for renewal in Wittenberg, experienced and led Reformation Day and Buss und Bettag, learned about liturgy and preaching.
We were young but adults, full of hope, getting ready to have that hope dashed, cynicism was there under the surface. During the previous week we had begun to receive reports of the police brutality towards thos imprisoned in Berlin and Halle at the beginning of October. We had read some of those reports out at our morning prayers and wept and raged. Our emotions were elemental, we were living through a revolution yet everyone was away from home and would rather have been at home with their own peace and church groups, going on the demonstrations with their friends and family - apart from me ...
I had suggested - ever the liturgist - that we should end each 10 day module with a communion service. So after two hours of telling each other what we thought of one another in no uncertain terms, we moved from the painful evaluation table not to the upper but to the lower room where a simple round table is set with bread and wine.
I clearly remember Friedrich Schorlemmer bringing flowers to the table at the last moment and my being deeply moved by that. In my memory they were pinkish snapdragons, but perhaps my memory fails me - surely they could not have survived so far into the season, that must have been on a previous occasion, one eucharist speaks of and reminds one of another. I remember the flowers though, from one of those eucharists and I remember Friedrich's face and body as he place this offering of beauty on the table. (Dr B has my diary and we will see whether my memory was wrong.)
I presided at our round table eucharist and I spoke of remembrance, of my Grandfather being arrested in the Kristallnacht raids and taken away to Sachsenhausen concentration camp 61 years earlier. And so with stories of brokenness, pain and hope all around us, having shared hard and gentler words with each other, we broke bread and drank wine in memory of the one who was broken and shed for us.
Next to me as we prayed and felt the bread and wine in our mouths, my friend U began to sob, tears rolling down his face. He is not ashamed of his grief and emotion. As I think back to that morning my hand remembers the feel of his jeans as I placed my hand on his leg in an attempt not to quiet him but simply to offer comfort and in some strange way to say yes this is what it has been like.
Twelve hours later U and many of the others were spending the night at the impromptu street party on both sides of the wall. The feast of memory became the party of liberation.

Crosspost from the StranzBlog

Reformation and Revolution in Wittenberg

Today marks the 492nd anniversary of Martin Luther's 95 Theses, which he is reputed to have nailed to the door of the Schlosskirche in Wittenberg, thus setting in train what has been described as the Protestant revolution. 20 years ago in this town about 90 kilometres south of Berlin, Christians organized the fourth of their "prayers for renewal" ("Gebet um Erneuerung") calling for civic rights and reform in East Germany. For the first time, the service since the "prayers for renewal" began, was followed by a "demonstrative procession" from the Schlosskirche to the Marktplatz, where 7 theses were stuck onto the door of the Town Hall. Jane was then studying at Wittenberg and she wrote in her diary:

The Gebet um Erneuerung in the evening was preceded by a certain amount of tension - what if there was violence, how would we cope? ... It went well. Over an hour before the start, the church was full and the courtyard outside was packed. Hans Treu, the dean of Wittenberg, had written a very good meditation and hand led the intercessions so there was no clapping of speechifying. As we sang the Kyrie, suddenly he atmosphere changed and in the gallery, people started lighting their candles. It was very moving. The demonstration was terribly orderly. I was one of two people carrying a banner reading, "You can't fill a hungry soul with prosperity". We were very near the back. I felt rather uncomfortable that I and not a GDR person was carrying something. Our candles dribbles wax everywhere, of course, making weird and wonderful sculptures on our hands.

In the distance it looked as if a small group of police were watching the demonstration from the corner, but as we got closer it turned out to be a group of Soviet soldiers who had turned up to watch us. Someone had even handed one of them a candles. One of the students greeted them in Russian and they returned the greeting with a smile. It was a small sign of the kingdom of God.

The market place was full, the local council had supplied (spontaneously) a proper P.A. system. It was all a bit calm, still a church service really. People no doubt expected a bit more. Some shouting at the town hall, "Come out". We sang a bit more, things were read about Luther and Melanchthon. Demokratischer Aufbruch and Demokratie Jetzt read their programmes out. DA sees socialism as the dominant force in the GDR. DJ sees no role for socialism except with a (modern) democratic set-up. DA is like a left wing Social Democratic Party and DJ like a left wing Dree Democratic Party. It's all really weird. No doubt they will all start splitting rather than merging in the coming years. There's supposedly a meeting of the United Left coming off soon, which really of course means a meeting of the Un-United Left. Once everyone had finished talking and it was agreed that we'd meet again next week and invite the Burgermeister as well. The market place was covered in candles, really very pretty. Many were on the steps of the Rathaus where the 7 Theses (thank goodness not 95!) had been attached to the door as a reminder of Luther.

It was stressed throughout the evening that this was not a church/state conflict but a people/state conflict. Quite an important difference but for how much longer can the church speak for the people, will it be able to give up that role? ...

Discussion over supper indicates that the local newspaper carried pictures and a full article about yesterday's demonstration, over 8000 people they reckon. In Prague many arrests have been made in the past fortnight. Havel is in jail again. If the world markets are about to go through a sticks patch then it's really worrying to think what the effect on Glasnost and Perestroika might be.

The German theologian Kay-Ulrich Bronk has written about the Gebete um Erneuerung in Wittenberg in autumn 1989 in his book, "The flight of the dove and the fall of the Wall", in which he quotes from Propst Treu's meditation:

Martin Luther did not discuss his theses with a small group of his students and colleagues but published them on 31 October 1517 so that they would be known to all and so bring renewal to church and society. We want to reconstruct this move to the outside world. We want to take renewal from the church through the streets of our town to the market place and from their to our homes and families, to where we work and - especially importantly - into the schools of our town (applause) ... This is the way we are going, creating conditions that have been renewedl relationships through people who have been renewed ... I want to mention something that has been mentioned in the previous three Tuesday evenings ... We have been brought to our current crisis and plight because a single party has claims the monopoly of power and truth, that must be changed (long protracted applause, stamping of feet) Dear friends, the Bible says: only people who have been renewed have the power to create conditions that have been renewed.

Bronk then continues himself:

The prayers for renewal ... were oriented towards specific issues like the political worship of the 1968 generation and inductive like the ecumenical assemblies of the conciliar process ... Before the people leave the church and move through the streets of Wittenberg in a "demonstrative procession", the final hymn of the prayers for renewal is sung, "Bewahre uns Gott" ("La paz del Señor"). I have already noted how this song had the character of a a song for sending out. But on no other evening did it have this character as on this occasion. Many of the participants probaby understood the refrain, "Sei um uns auf unsern Wegen", was probably understood by many of the participants as a direct reference to the march through the streets to the Marktplatz in front of the Rathaus. Then although the walk had been agreed with the town bosses, it was without any precedent ..,The demonstrations in other towns that had passed off peacefully could serve as an encouragement, but the first step from the protective space of the church had to be done anew in each town, and as such was accompanied by uncertainty ... As the people left the Schlosskirche and the Stadkirche the bells of both churches were rung. This had not only a liturgical but also a psychological function: a psychological in that this helped to overcome inner anxiety, a liturgical function in that it signalled that the move out of the church was not simply a political affair, but was a consequence of what had happened inside the church. Noah's dove had found dry land. The people left the Ark.

This year the Reformation celebration is going to be marked by a tree planting ceremony in Wittenberg, as the first trees are planted for the Luther Garden, in which churches worldwide are to be encouraged to adopt one of the 500 trees that are planned for the Luther Garden and also to plant a tree themselves to denote a link with the birthplace of the Reformation.

Meanwhile, over on the StranzBlog, Jane is blogging about the prayers for renewal being a spirituality of civil society.

(Photo is from Friedrich Schorlemmer's book, "Die Wende in Wittenberg")