Statement by Bishop Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, Chair of the EKD Council

There are now only a few months to go until 31 October 2016 – when, on Reformation Day, the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) and the Kirchentag will jointly launch the anniversary year. Then we will celebrate the Reformation anniversary in 2017 for a whole twelve months, ecumenically and in a European context. That is what makes the 500th anniversary different from all the other centenaries of the Reformation in the past.

I.
The Reformation anniversary will be European because that is the only way to do justice to the movement that changed the world in the 16th century. True, a special dynamic went out from Wittenberg. But before that, simultaneously and later, other German and European towns and countries had their own Reformation movements. This quincentenary is unimaginable without Jan Hus in Prague, Huldrych Zwingli in Zürich, John Calvin in Geneva, or Martin Bucer in Strasbourg. Nor can we bypass Thomas Müntzer and the left wing of the Reformation; Menno Simons and the Peace Churches; John Knox and the Scots; John Wesley and the Methodists. Many reformations and reformers have contributed to the Reformation not remaining a German event in Luther’s city of Wittenberg, but to its spreading through Europe and from there to the whole world.

That is why – as of October 2016 - the activities of the EKD and its 20 regional member churches (Landeskirchen) in Germany will reflect this dimension and make it more than a purely German anniversary. A look at the regional churches shows that as a consequence of the Luther Decade/Reformation Decade (with its ten theme years leading up to 2017), they will be organising large-scale events with impressive partnerships. Church organisations and theatres, museums and church choirs, congregations and public broadcasters are bringing out different aspects that will indicate how the reverberations of the Reformation are still felt in the present.

The European dimension will, in fact, become clear shortly before the official launch. On 2 October 2016 church congregations and the EKD will reconsecrate the Castle Church in Wittenberg – after many years of rebuilding and restoration. President Joachim Gauck and Queen Margrethe II of Denmark are expected to be present, along with guests from all over the world. The launch on 31 October 2016 will also send a strong European signal. At the opening service in Berlin’s St Mary’s Church, we will recall the freedom for which the Reformation stands. And on the very same day, Pope Francis and Bishop Younan, President of the Lutheran World Federation, will hold an ecumenical service in Lund (Sweden), in which they will also speak of the wounds that the confessions mutually inflicted on each other and pray for forgiveness and the healing of these wounds. This European and strongly ecumenical dimension will demonstrate what the anniversary is about – and we are very glad of that.

Furthermore, the European idea will be spelled out very literally during 2016/17 thanks to the European Reformation Roadmap (Stationenweg), that – through visits and local events - will successively highlight the Reformation in 68 cities and 19 European countries.

II.
The EKD is convinced that the Reformation anniversary must be not only a European or international celebration, but also deeply ecumenical. 100 years after the ecumenical movement began, no one now wants to continue the highly problematic tradition of celebratory profiling – above all profiling Protestant identity over against the Catholic Church. We will mark the year 2017 ecumenically as a Festival of Christ. With this mutual promise – recorded in a correspondence between Cardinal Marx and myself – we have not only opened a new chapter of Reformation history, but at the same time gone back to the origins of the Reformation 500 years ago. After all, the Reformers did not want to found a new church, they wanted to point to Jesus Christ. Such a renewed recollection of Jesus Christ, a great ‘festival of Christ’ shared by people living from the gift of the new freedom and discipleship – that is what Martin Luther, too, would have wished for 2017. For where we are gathered around Christ, where we allow inner freedom to become outer freedom as well, in order to serve our neighbours - there Christ is in our midst.

Accordingly, leaders of the Protestant and Catholic churches are going to set out on a pilgrimage to Israel and Palestine in autumn, in order to be reminded of the sources and roots of their common faith.

This ecumenical start will be complemented by an ecumenical Bible conference held on 9 February 2017 in Stuttgart with the theme “Scripture as the basis of the Festival of Christ”. Indeed, the EKD together with the German Bible Society will publish the revised Luther Bible as early as autumn 2016, which will showcase the central significance of the Word of God for the whole anniversary.

As part of this focus on Christ, the two major German churches propose to draft a fundamental text on “healing of memories”. That involves naming the wounds and injuries that arose through the events of past centuries. This honest remembrance will enable a service of penitence and reconciliation to be held on 11 March 2017 in the Hildesheim Church of St. Michael, at which Catholics and Protestants will confess their history of guilt and seek reconciliation before God and the whole congregation.

III.
The Reformation anniversary in 2017 will be both European and ecumenical. 500 years after the Reformation the EKD, clearly differing from all other centenaries in past centuries, will send a signal of reconciliation and herald a new departure.

And we trust that many people will find these ideas inspiring and contagious. Wherever people, like Martin Luther, are enthusiastic about Christ, they begin to build reconciliation, because they know that they themselves are reconciled. They overcome their fear and start to live from freedom. They forgive because they know that they themselves can only live from forgiveness. People dare to show love in different ways, because they sense in their hearts the love they receive from God.
 
This world needs us as Christians, because this world needs people who have learned to say: “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits” (Psalm 103). It needs people who again and again follow the one who, as Jesus Christ, preached gentleness and mercy instead of hatred; the one who met his end after suffering excruciating torture, and – as the Risen One – shows that life has defeated death.

Celebrating 500 years of Reformation means intervening in public life, taking responsibility and making clear that the Kingdom of God can be glimpsed here and now. And we may be sure that, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Corinthians 3:17).