2017: What it is about

Courage! Indeed, it is an unshakable courage which the Reformation anniversary in 2017 will highlight and celebrate when remembering the posting of the 95 Theses. Someone dared to stand up against all authorities, to see God with new eyes. Without any doubt, Martin Luther was gifted: a sharp thinker, a preacher of faith and its traditions. However, his ideas gained their decisive weight by his courage to rethink - and talk about - God.

The 95 Theses, which Luther made public on 31 October 1517, set things in motion and brought forth plenty of new ideas. Strictly speaking, this movement has never really come to a standstill over the last 500 years. Nor should it, because every encounter of God is new - different from the one before, different from the experiences of others. On the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, we want to revisit the courageous monk and take him as an example - as someone who distributed his criticism of the contemporary church by using printed pamphlets, contradicting the rigid orders of the day and narrating the Bible in a completely new language.

This is why a golden thread will run through the wide range of worship, festivals and events planned to mark the Reformation anniversary. A narrative thread, called "God: new", which takes up the story of this movement, inviting us into a great variety of spaces where we can seek new ways of encountering God. We can experience, think, and pray to God anew, as well as talk, worship, discover and believe. In all its variations, "God: new" will start with longing, with the quest for God. We are on the lookout, seeking and looking out for the New.