For the first time in almost 500 years, a Roman Catholic Mass was celebrated in Geneva’s Protestant St. Pierre Cathedral, with people praying in packed pews.

It was a celebration of Christian unity in a world reeling at the war and the growing humanitarian needs in Ukraine.

Some 1,500 people attended the Mass on March 5 at the imposing cathedral in the heart of Geneva’s old town that had been a Catholic church before the 1536 Reformation.
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Church and political leaders have marked the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s Reformation in Wittenberg, Germany where on 31 October 1517 he published his 95 Theses denouncing church abuses.

“It was an act of liberation when, 500 years ago today, the Augustinian monk Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses in Wittenberg, perhaps even a few metres from here, on the door of this church,” Bishop Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, chairperson of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany, said in his sermon at the 31 October service at Wittenberg’s Castle Church.

“A spiritual renewal went out from Wittenberg, to people in Germany, Europe and worldwide. To men and women from all social classes,” said Bedford-Strohm.

The service opened with the singing of Luther’s hymn “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” whose words are inscribed around the tower of the Castle Church, and included music by 18th century composer Johann Sebastian Bach.

German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier and chancellor Angela Merkel joined church leaders at the service, including Cardinal Reinhard Marx, president of the German Bishops’ Conference, and the general secretary of the World Council of Churches, Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit.
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You might have heard the story about the German friar who nailed 95 provocative statements to a church door a long time ago, triggering something we now call the Reformation.

If you’re looking for a modern interpretation, 500 years ago next Tuesday, Martin Luther posted a particularly incendiary series of tweets. He wanted to provoke debate about corruption in the Roman Catholic Church. He certainly achieved that.

Sadly, Luther couldn’t take advantage of Twitter — and it’s generally accepted that he didn’t actually hammer his arguments to a church door. Instead he used the then cutting-edge technology of printing. But the impact was no less dramatic. What Luther wrote went around Europe incredibly quickly; it was the viral content of its day.

Within two decades Europe was split between Protestants and Catholics in a process called the Reformation. The conflict that generated (which began in England in the early 1530s) continued for hundreds of years. The first century or so was especially bloody and violent.
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Five hundred years ago, Martin Luther kicked off the Protestant Reformation, which contributed to the birth of our modern age. In this one-hour special — filmed on location in Europe — Rick Steves tells the story of a humble monk who lived a dramatic life. Rick visits key sites relating to the Reformation (including Erfurt, Wittenberg, and Rome) and explores the complicated political world of 16th-century Europe — from indulgences to iconoclasts, and from the printing press to the Counter-Reformation. It’s a story of power, rebellion, and faith that you’ll never forget.
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“This year, churches around the world will be marking the great significance of the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation in Europe, dated from Martin Luther’s 95 Theses protesting against the practice of indulgences, on 31 October 1517 at Wittenberg. The Church of England will be participating in various ways, including sharing in events with Protestant church partners from Continental Europe.

The Reformation was a process of both renewal and division amongst Christians in Europe. In this Reformation Anniversary year, many Christians will want to give thanks for the great blessings they have received to which the Reformation directly contributed. Amongst much else these would include clear proclamation of the gospel of grace, the availability of the Bible to all in their own language and the recognition of the calling of lay people to serve God in the world and in the church.

Many will also remember the lasting damage done five centuries ago to the unity of the Church, in defiance of the clear command of Jesus Christ to unity in love. Those turbulent years saw Christian people pitted against each other, such that many suffered persecution and even death at the hands of others claiming to know the same Lord. A legacy of mistrust and competition would then accompany the astonishing global spread of Christianity in the centuries that followed. All this leaves us much to ponder.
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Commemorations of next year’s 500th anniversary of the Reformation – which led to the separation of protestant churches from the Catholic Church – have begun with a combined prayer service in Lund Cathedral, Sweden, attended by Pope Francis and the Revd Dr Martin Junge, general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation. The participation of Pope Francis at the start of the year of commemorations is hugely significant and symbolises the growing ecumenical thaw which has been taking place over the past 50 years.

The prayer service is taking place in Lund Cathedral, which began life in 1080 as the seat of the Catholic archiepiscopal diocese of Lund; but since Danish Reformation in the 1520s and 1530s, has been a Lutheran cathedral. It became part of the Church of Sweden when the Province of Skåne (Scania) was ceded from Denmark to Sweden in 1658.

Through the Porvoo Communion, the Church of Sweden is in full communion with several Anglican churches, including the Church of England, the Church of Ireland, the Lusitanian Church of Portugal, the Scottish Episcopal Church, the Reformed Episcopal Church of Spain, and the Church in Wales. Elsewhere across the globe, other Anglican churches are in varying degrees of unity and communion with other Lutheran churches.

“We are on our way from conflict to communion,” Archbishop Antje Jackelén, leader of the Church of Sweden, said at a press conference, referencing the ground-breaking 2013 joint report between the two churches. “We are going to express our joy and gratitude for what we have in common: namely, the Gospel of Jesus Christ which unites us – that can be celebrated never enough.

“But there are also things that we definitely do not want to celebrate; but to repent and express our lament and sorrow; and that is, of course, the pain that division has caused throughout so many centuries.”
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Pope Francis will join people from all over the world in celebration of the ecumenical developments of the Catholic and Lutheran Churches. The event takes place 31 October in southern Sweden. The celebration will be divided into two, one in a cathedral in Lund and one for 10,000 people in a sports arena in Malmö.

The 31 October is called “Reformation Day” by Lutherans. It was the day Martin Luther posted his 95 theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg.

The Lund Cathedral ceremony will be a prayer with the pope and the president of the Lutheran church together. It’s the first time for something like this to happen. Then later that day, there will be performances, songs and prayers in Malmö. All of them will be under the general theme of “Together in Hope”.

The programme will include testimonies of people from around the world. One of the speakers is Marguerite Barankitse, the “Mother of Burundi”. She is the founder of “Maison Shalom”. It helps orphans of the civil war lead a normal life. They can get an education and have a chance at a good future. She has experienced brutal war, but continues to have hope for peace.
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A global gathering in the German city of Halle has called on churches to be inspired by the tradition of the Reformation to become agents of transformation.

“We came from different confessional and denominational traditions and together we sought to discover the transformative power of Reformation today, not as a past event but oriented to the future,” participants said in a statement at the end of the 18-22 May consultation.

Halle, in eastern Germany, lies in the heartland of the 16th-century Reformation of Martin Luther and his followers.

The Halle meeting gathered more than 120 people from 40 countries and was the second stage of a “Twin Consultation” on “Reformation – Education – Transformation” that began with a conference in São Leopoldo in Brazil in November 2015.
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More than 120 people from throughout the world have gathered in the eastern German city of Halle to reflect on how insights from the Protestant Reformation 500 years ago can contribute to transforming the world today.

“We want to initiate and encourage a truly ecumenical and global dialogue on the achievements, current challenges and new learnings about the relevance of Reformation principles,” said the Rev. Cornelia Füllkrug-Weitzel, president of the German Protestant development service Bread for the World, at the opening of the 18-22 May conference.

The Halle gathering is the second stage of a “Twin Consultation” on “Reformation – Education – Transformation” that began with a conference in São Leopoldo in Brazil in November 2015.

In advance of the Reformation Jubilee in 2017, the project aims to examine the contribution of Reformation traditions and theology to strengthening and transforming civil society to promote justice, peace, sustainability and human rights, both locally and globally, with a special emphasis on the role of education.

“2017 will not be an event that looks back historically but an occasion to reflect where reform and reformation is needed today in church and society,” the Rev. Margot Kässmann, ambassador of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) for the Reformation Jubilee, told the Halle meeting.

The idea of holding two consultations in Brazil and in Germany – with some participants attending both meetings – is to reflect on the same thematic areas in two different global contexts as a contribution to the 500th anniversary of the Reformation and its impact on society.
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The 500th anniversary of the Reformation in 2017 should be a profoundly ecumenical, as well as European and international celebration, according to Bishop Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, chair of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD).

“With this clear distinction from all other commemorations of past centuries, we are sending a signal of reconciliation and a new beginning,” Bedford-Strohm said at a 9 May press conference in Berlin announcing events leading up to the anniversary on 31 October 2017.

The commemoration marks the day in 1517 on which Martin Luther is said to have posted his 95 theses denouncing church abuses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg.

Luther’s actions set in motion events that led to the Reformation and the division of western Christianity into Roman Catholic and Protestant churches.

In recent years, however, Roman Catholics and Lutherans have reached agreement on the doctrine of justification, a key dividing issue between the papacy and Luther and his followers, and many doctrinal differences should no longer have a church-dividing character, said Bedford-Strohm.
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“An ecological reformation of Christianity is a matter of repentance, conversion, and renewal for all Christian traditions,” reads the “Volos Call,” a statement issued after a meeting of church representatives from different traditions and all continents, held in Greece, between 10-13 March.

Gathering at the Academy of Volos for the international conference on Eco-Theology, Climate Justice and Food Security, participants stressed the concern that “an ecological reformation of Christianity (in all its traditions) is possible, but can remain authentic only if it stays in the Spirit and is expressed in the form of a humble prayer: Veni, Creator Spiritus! Come, Holy Spirit, renew your whole creation!”

According to the statement, an ecological reformation of Christianity “implies a twofold critique, namely both a deeper Christian critique of the root causes of ecological destruction and an ecological critique of forms of Christianity which have not recognized the ecological dimensions of the Gospel.”
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The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU) will jointly host an ecumenical event in the fall of 2016 as a continuation of the process “From Conflict to Communion” and to express the joint gifts received through dialogue, particularly in anticipation of the 500th Reformation anniversary in 2017. 2017 also marks 50 years of ecumenical dialogue between the LWF and the Roman Catholic Church.

Within the framework of the forthcoming Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, it is important for the LWF and PCPCU to communicate to the wider ecumenical constituency that they have begun deliberations on the details of the event that comes a year before the global Reformation anniversary.

The joint event in 2016 will highlight the solid ecumenical developments between Catholics and Lutherans which are captured in their joint report From Conflict to Communion – Lutheran-Catholic Common Commemoration of the Reformation in 2017.
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An interview with the Archbishop of Utrecht, Cardinal Willem Jacobus Eijk, sparked controversy in the Netherlands during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. The interview was published in Reformatorisch Dagblad and reprinted by Trouw, on Monday 20 January.

The title of the interview is: “Eijk: the doctrine and condemnations of the Council of Trent still apply fully” The subheading read: “Cardinal Eijk has confirmed that the teachings of the Council of Trent still apply and so do the condemnations the Council made against those who reject said teachings. Protestants for example.”

The cardinal did not check the interview title and introductory summary, only the interview itself, which he approved. His statements were also quoted on the Dutch Bishops’ Conference website.

According to Eijk, the Council of Trent is a sign of the “Roman Catholic Church’s ability to purify itself,” with the “guidance of the Holy Spirit.” Eijk said Trent ended much of the malpractice in the Church during the Middle Ages, such as the ecclesiastical “job” trade, non biblical interpretations of the priesthood and the lack of discipline in monasteries: “When all the decrees (of the Council) were implemented, order was restored to the Church.”

The Council of Trent also contributed to defining some “truths of faith” regarding Protestants. The cardinal stated that these are still fully applicable. For example the essence of the sacrament of the Eucharist and transubstantiation.
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Events in Christianity that led to the Reformation nearly half a millennium ago split the Roman Catholic Church, ushering the advent of Protestant churches.

When the 500th anniversary is commemorated in 2017, Lutherans and Catholics hope to be drawn closer in the quest for church unity.

Catholic and Lutherans announced a special joint publication Monday entitled From Conflict to Communion for this that helps bury many past differences and brings Catholics and Lutherans closer together.

“The awareness is dawning on Lutherans and Catholics that the struggle of the 16th century is over,” the report said. “The reasons for mutually condemning each other’s faith have fallen by the wayside.”
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For the first time, Lutherans and Roman Catholics at the global level have worked together to tell the story of the Reformation as part of their commitment to deepen Christian unity.

The publication From Conflict to Communion will be published this month by the Lutheran – Roman Catholic Commission on Unity. The commission is mandated by The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU) to facilitate the global ecumenical dialogue between the two Christian World Communions.

LWF Assistant General Secretary for Ecumenical Relations Rev. Dr Kaisamari Hintikka said the publication From Conflict to Communion: Lutheran–Roman Catholic Common Commemoration of the Reformation in 2017 contributes to strengthening the commitment to work for the visible unity of the Church. It will be presented to the LWF Council at its meeting this June.
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The Special Envoy of the Evangelical Church in Germany for the 2017 Reformation Jubilee, Margot Kässmann, renewed her call for a joint Catholic-Protestant Reformation commemoration. At a meeting in Wittenberg in October, Kässmann said she thinks “a strictly sectarian Reformation Jubilee is not appropriate.” Martin Luther wanted to reform his church, not divide it. “This could be a yardstick for us, too,” she added. She also turned down a proposal by the Vatican’s “ecumenical minister” Kurt Cardinal Koch for a Protestant-Catholic acknowledgment of guilt on this occasion. “One should not speak of a ‘jubilee’, but rather of a ‘Reformation commemoration,’ for we cannot celebrate a sin,” said the president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity in September in Vienna. “Protestants cannot go along with this,” Kässmann said.
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Lutheran Bishop Johannes Friedrich has said that the Pope’s visit to the Augustinian monastery at Erfurt on his visit to Germany last year “cannot be rated highly enough”. The former Bishop of Bavaria was writing in the German Protestant monthly Chrismon about the papal visit to Germany’s Protestant heartland last year. The visit came amid
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The joint commemoration of the Reformation by Catholics and Lutherans could begin with an admission of guilt by both sides, the president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Cardinal Kurt Koch, said in an interview last week. The Vatican and the Lutheran World Federation are planning a joint declaration on the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in 2017. “Without joint recollection, joint purification and without an admission of guilt on both sides, an honest commemoration will not be possible,” Cardinal Koch told the Austrian Catholic Press Agency.
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