|
- THE DALAI LAMA NEVER MISSES A BEAT
- The Dalai Lama, the Tibetan political and religious leader,
will talk about non-violence global ethics in Germany this week.
As the 100th anniversary of the founding of the first Buddhist
congregation in Germany approaches, the Dalai Lama plans to visit
the country.
The Dalai Lama, Tibetan Buddhism's spiritual leader and a
recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, will be in Germany for this
week's historic meeting between Catholics and Protestants in
Berlin and to meet regional leaders from May 28 to June 2. His
visit comes shortly before the 100th anniversary of Buddhism
as an organized religion in the country.
Though he frequently calls himself "a simple monk,"
the Dalai Lama has successfully raised awareness worldwide..
Founded in 1903 by eight college students of a University in
Leipzig. Buddhism remained in intellectual circles. Richard Wagner,
Hitler's favorite composer, dallied with Buddhism. Buddhism didn't
begin to grow until it was imported from the U.S. in the late
1980s. 270,000 are today practicing Buddhist in Germany of which
150,000 are German.
http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1441_A_879387_1_A,00.html
FIRST ECUMENICAL CHURCH DAY FOR GERMANS: TIRED OF WAITING
ON THE POPE, CATHOLIC PRIEST ORGANIZES HOLY COMMUNION BETWEEN
CATHOLICS AND PROTESTANTS..
- First Ecumenical Church Day for Germans: Tired of Waiting
on the Pope, Catholic Priest Organizes Holy Communion Between
Catholics and Protestants. Germany's Catholics, Protestants Come
Together for Historic Event Over 200,000 people are expected
to come to Berlin for the first Ecumenical Kirchentag.
The Pope's refusal to grant Catholics the right to take communion
together with Protestants threatens to overshadow the first-ever
joint gathering of the churches in Germany. It's been heralded
as the turning point in the history of Christianity in Germany.
Nearly 500 years after Martin Luther upset the church with his
reformation theses, after bloody religious wars, hate and estrangement
that spanned centuries, more than 200,000 Protestants and Catholics
plan to proclaim their desire for unity over Ascension weekend
in Berlin during the country's first Ecumenical Kirchentag, which
begins Wednesday.
But clashes are on the agenda. While the visitors were looking
forward to celebrating the holy communion together, the Pope
ruled out the possibility.
In a papal encyclical issued in April, the Pope forbid sharing
the Eucharist with churches not in full communion with Rome.
Subsequently, Catholics may not engage in the ceremony with Protestants,
whose beliefs the Pope has described as an ecclesiastical community
rather than a church.
A Protestant congregation in the Prenzlauer Berg district of
Berlin has, nevertheless, invited visitors of both denominations
to a Catholic mass and a Protestant communion. Catholic representatives
have threatened to punish the Catholic priest who organized the
service.
But he may find solace in the results of a recent survey indicating
that the majority of Germans do not believe the separation between
the two churches is necessary in this day and age. Fifty-seven
percent of respondents said there were no good reasons for a
separation between the churches, the poll commissioned by the
DPA news agency showed.
A MANY-VOICED HARMONY
The fact that affiliations between the churches continue to
develop in Germany is in no small part thanks to initiatives
from the churches' rank and file -- where decisions don't necessarily
reflect the strict positions in the upper echelons of the churches.
The nearly 50 German ecumenical centers, where Protestant and
Catholic congregations share their houses of worship, illustrate
the point.
At the ecumenical congregation in Darmstadt's Kranichstein neighborhood,
people of both denominations are welcome to take part in the
holy communion, Pastor Harald Seredzun said. He too is disturbed
by the conflict: "We feel it here too. The so-called ecumenical
concelebration is something that in my opinion must come and
will come, too."
The two denominations have lived under the same roof at the
ecumenical center in Hesse for more than 30 years. But no one
is forced to be part of the joint community. Each congregation
has its own rooms and endeavors to maintain its own unique character.
"I like to illustrate it with an image," Seredzun
explained. "The ecumenical choir doesn't achieve unity by
singing in unison, but rather in many-voiced harmony. And the
riches of harmony are attained when each person hits his note
exactly. The image shows that one has a pillar in one's own identity,
in one's own roots, which enables communication."
Sometimes, however, the voices of the denominations rub off
on one another. At the ecumenical communion, for example, the
participants search for a common spirituality.
"Mixed Protestant, Catholic. We often don't know ourselves
exactly who is Protestant and Catholic," Anna Zeh, who organizes
the communion in Kranichstein, explained.
But Zeh doesn't see ecumenism as the amalgamation of denominations.
"I wouldn't want to exchange my Protestant service for
the Catholic one, because the sermon is the main thing for me,"
Zeh said. "That's how I grew into it. And the Catholics
would certainly complain if they always had to undergo our dry
Protestant service."
DOWN WITH THE WALLS
Ecumenism is handled differently in the church center Arche
in Neckargemünd near Heidelberg.
"The most important thing is that in ecumenism -- here
in Arche, which was established by the Ecumenical Council --
here there is the basic principle that everything is thought
through, experienced, and carried out collectively and that separation
requires justification," Protestant Pastor Christoph Lauter
explained.
The pastor's office, song book and caretaker are all ecumenical,
Lauter told German public television. Only the rooms for worship
are separate.
But every first Sunday of the month is ecumenical day. Then
the caretaker rolls away the walls dividing the denominations
and a joint sermon is held.
A few years ago a joint communion was regularly celebrated too,
but that came to an involuntary end.
"Someone came from outside and saw how we handled the holy
communion, and he tattled on us," a congregation member
recalled the beginning of the end of the ecumenical ceremony.
Despite the ensuing objection from the Catholic diocese Rottenburg
/ Stuttgart, the ecumenical congregation in Neckargemünd
has remained loyal to its original concept. The denominations
don't just want to be neighbors.
That is far too little, one visitor told German television after
the ecumenical service.
"When you experience this, it's entirely different then
in other ecumenical centers, because here all circles are together
throughout the week. There is an ecumenical church musician,
an ecumenical choir. It is all joint, you have ecumenical Bible
work. I have done Bible work with groups here, where Catholic
women read the Bible for the first time because they weren't
allowed to before. And this experience was simply magnificent.
"Mutual stimulation is totally normal here because you
do everything jointly. And there are many people who ask me,
and who don't know, which confession I belong to, and who are
absolutely sure I'm Catholic. But I'm a Protestant pastor here.
That is the funny thing about Georg Magirius
http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1441_A_879632_1_A,00.html
|