2 - 2001

Protestans and Catholics in Germany

The Protestant Profile and Ecumenical Cooperation

The Protestant church discusses relations with Catholics

by Jürgen Wandel

For decades there has been cooperation based on trust between Protestant and Catholic churches in Germany. This is reflected in joint statements of the Catholic Bishops' Conference and the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), as well as through intensive ecumenical collaboration between many neighbouring local churches. The EKD Synod in November 2000 defined its position towards Catholicism.

The ecumenical movement is facing a crisis. The Vatican's paper Dominus Iesus, which denies that Protestant churches are churches, was an offence to Protestants. How are Protestants responding to this challenge? One answer was given by the EKD Synod meeting in Brunswick.

The main topics of the meeting were ecumenical relations. This had been decided a year before, shortly after representatives of the Vatican and the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) had met in Augsburg to sign the "Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification". At the EKD Synod, it was clear that this has been a sobering time for the Protestants of Germany, but they see this ecumenical crisis as an opportunity for spiritual reflection and re-thinking.

The EKD wants to maintain and cultivate its existing good relations with its Roman Catholic sister church. The EKD Council President, Manfred Kock, emphasised at the Brunswick meeting that "there is much more connecting us than there is separating us". Roman Catholic bishops Josef Homeyer of Hildesheim and Joachim Wanke of Erfurt also spoke of the ties which bind them to Protestant Christians.

At the press conference, Wanke expressed ideas which must sound revolutionary to the Vatican. The Bishop sees the ancient church of the first millennium as a model for community between the two churches. This was the model of the church also referred to by the Catholics, who had rejected the doctrine of infallibility of the First Vatican Council in 1870, and then joined to form the Old Catholic Church.

Präses Kock indicated that Dominus Iesus is a "very conservative" interpretation of the Vatican's Reform Council, and a sign of the Vatican's "weakness and over-meticulousness". However, it is possible to see positive sides in the document. It has woken up Protestants.

"The Protestant profile" is the key concept of Kock's report and of almost all the contributions in the Synod's discussions. Robert Leicht, journalist from Hamburg and member of the EKD Council, expressed regret that self-awareness and self-criticism among Protestants were aroused only "when certain letters arrive from Rome".

The EKD Synod would also like the Protestant profile to be more sharply defined at the European level. The Synod drafted a statement which called for a "European Protestant Assembly" which would meet regularly, like a synod, thus "strengthening the voice of European Protestantism".

In Germany, Protestants usually think of themselves and refer to themselves as "evangelical". The situation is different in other places. In the USA, for example, many different Protestant churches, ranging from Adventist to United Methodist,  compete with each other. To distinguish themselves from each other and gain members, each emphasises its own confessional profile. It is also important for them to find their denominational partners at the international level; the same is true for the confessional churches of the Third World.

At the beginning of the 20th century, when the various churches were joining in the ecumenical movement, they wanted to work together in practical areas such as mission and social service, despite doctrinal differences. They noted that "Doctrine divides, service unites". Since then, the emphasis has shifted. Particularly in the last 30 years Lutherans and Catholics, for example, have tried to reappraise their dogmatic differences which had developed came about during the time of Reformation.
One result of these conversations on dogma is the "Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification". But now it seems that the pendulum is swinging back the other way. The EKD Synod in Brunswick stated that ecumenism is "not an end in itself"; it is rather the "movement for justice and peace" which needs the "united efforts of the churches". This was underlined by WCC General Secretary Konrad Raiser, who gave a speech to the Synod in Brunswick. In his view there has been too much of a tendency in recent years to limit the understanding of ecumenism to efforts towards the visible unity of the churches.

Jürgen Wandel is editor of the Protestant monthly magazine "Zeitzeichen (Signs of the Times)". This article, published here in abridged form, appeared in the December 2000 issue.