For the first time in more than 50 years, the Assembly of the World Council of Churches is convening in Europe again. It is therefore both an honour and a delight for me as Federal President to extend a warm welcome, also on behalf of our country, to all of you who have travelled from all corners of the globe to come to Germany.

This is the first time that the World Council of Churches is meeting in Germany. We are most grateful that you have accepted the invitation to come here and hope that we will be good hosts. This event is intended to be a celebration of faith, of interaction, of exchange. It is rare for us to host guests who are so different but who are nonetheless connected by a deep sense of unity. A very warm welcome to you all!
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The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) has welcomed a recent resolution by the German Catholic bishops’ conference to make it possible for Catholic-Lutheran married couples to receive the Eucharist together.

This development follows the Joint Catholic-Lutheran Commemoration of the Reformation in 2016, where the LWF and the Catholic Church expressed it as a joint pastoral responsibility to “respond to the spiritual thirst and hunger” of many of their members “who yearn to receive the Eucharist at one table, as the concrete expression of full unity.”

In the German Bishops Conference earlier this month, the Catholic bishops agreed to provide an orientation that would help local Catholic priests and their bishops to formally decide on a case-by-case basis to open the Eucharist to Protestant spouses, which in Germany would include Lutherans, Reformed and members of united churches.
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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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