PRAYING IN WITTENBERG

PRAYING  IN  WITTENBERG

1. In June 2012 I visited Wittenberg (the city on the bank of Elbe, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany) – “the grain of mustard seed” (Mt., 13:31), from which the greatest tree of the Reformation had grown. The photos of that visit were sent to me by Larissa Wiederspann on 12 November 2015. The photos can be seen further.

2. Near the oak tree, under which Luther on 10 December 1520 burnt the bull, with which the Pope had announced about the anathema, i.e. excommunication, of Luther. Indeed, “nor any creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God” (Rom., 8:39).

3. At the back wall of the Wittenberg castle (to the doors of that castle church Luther on 31 October 1517 fastened his “95 theses”, thus having begun the Reformation). One can see the modernist sculpture of Katharina von Bora (the runaway nun, whom Luther married on 13 June 1525). The figure can symbolize the human soul, thirsting for the living God (Ps. 42:2), or a lone and secluded woman, thirsting for the true Christian husband.

4. Praying in the inner yard of the Wittenberg University. The theologians to meditate here in prayers were professor Luther; professor Philipp Melanchthon (the author of the Augsburg Confession); professor Thomas Muntzer (the spiritual leader of the iconoclastic revolution in Germany). There also such wonderful students prayed as Agricola (the founder of Lutheranity in Finland) and Tyndale (the translator of the Bible into English; with the translated by him text Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn had been converted, who gave the birth to Elizabeth I). The Shakespeare’s divine prophetical anachronism made Hamlet, Horatio, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern also be the students of this university. Visitors here also were Peter the Great (Russia czar) and Napoleon I (French Emperor).