Revolutionary thinking
It is 500 years since the Reformation and the German province where Martin Luther changed the world is at the centre of events marking the anniversary, writes
Luther was a good Catholic boy,” insists the guide at St Mary’s Cathedral in Erfurt, the capital of Thuringia in central Germany. Thuringia, which lay in the southeastern corner of the former East Germany, is one of Germany’s most rural provinces. With a population of 200,000 Erfurt is its largest city. This year, it is at the centre of celebrations for the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.
Martin Luther, the man who changed Germany and split the Christian church, was ordained as a priest in Erfurt’s Gothic cathedral in 1507. Ten years later, he would nail his 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg and set in motion the Protestant Reformation – or so legend has it. The act itself cannot be confirmed, though the events it sparked are well documented.
As the cathedral guide hints, Luther’s intention was never to split the church; it was to change it. In Thuringia, you can follow the course of his extraordinary life and find out how his revolutionary ideas led to an unintended religious schism, whose consequences reached far beyond Germany’s borders – not least to Scotland.
St Mary’s Cathedral is still Catholic today. After the Reformation, Erfurt’s population was split between reformers and adherents of Rome. When the city’s churches were divided between the Catholic and Protestant denominations, the Electors of Mainz, who controlled Erfurt at the time and were themselves Catholic, kept the most impressive buildings in the Catholic faith.
The cathedral is one of many exquisite historical sites connected with Luther to visit in this picturesque and unspoilt corner of Germany. If you want to walk or cycle between them, you can follow the ‘Lutherweg’, an 800km trail that connects the most important Luther sites in Thuringia. Along the way, you can indulge in local specialities, such as Thuringian Bratwurst, watercress soup and wheat beer, as well as the region’s many fine wines.
With celebrations for the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in full swing, there is no better time to go than this year. Reformation Day itself is on 31 October, but events are planned throughout the year – and indeed throughout the decade. It’s an unrivalled opportunity to explore the forests and hills of this bucolic region, which boasts the largest area of continuous deciduous woodland in Germany, while learning about a man and a moment in history that literally changed the world.
Many of this year’s events and exhibitions delve into aspects of Luther’s legacy that are sometimes overlooked. Luther is without doubt one of Germany’s most important sons. Even in secular East Germany, his achievements and reformatory zeal were widely celebrated. His impulses were broadly inclusive; he wanted ordinary people to be able to read the Bible for themselves. But in the modern world, which knows the barbarity of the Holocaust, his attitude towards the Jews is disturbing.
This year’s commemorations try to face up to this dark side of Martin Luther’s legacy. Without it, Germany’s Minister of State for Culture, Monika Grütters, has said, the memory of the Reformation in Germany remains incomplete.
If you are passing through Berlin on your way to Thuringia, you can catch a fascinating exhibition on Luther during National Socialism at the Topography of Terror Foundation. The exhibition, which runs until 5 November, considers how Martin Luther’s words were appropriated by the Nazi dictatorship.
“Luther’s words are everywhere, but turned upside down from truth to self-deception,” observed Dietrich Bonhoeffer in 1937. The exhibition examines this claim from the antinazi pastor, who would die in a concentration camp in 1945, and also addresses native antisemitism in Luther’s writings, particularly later works such as On the Jews and their Lies.
The exhibition is a good place to start finding out more about a man
Erfurt’s churches were divided between Catholic and Protestant denominations
we think we know, but whose life and legacy have taken surprising twists and turns. In Thuringia itself, the halftimbered Luther House in Eisenach, which is one of the oldest buildings in the city, is hosting a special exhibition this year entitled Heretic, Schismatic, Teacher of the Faith. It charts changing Catholic attitudes to Luther and complements an award-winning permanent exhibition on Luther and the Bible.
If you want to find out more about Luther’s own deep Catholic faith, a visit to the Augustinian monastery where he served as a monk for two years is a must. Luther became a monk here in 1505, reputedly after promising Saint Anna that he would take his vows if she saved him from a violent thunderstorm in nearby Stotternheim.
Life in the monastery was harsh and strictly regulated. The monks studied and worked in their cells but slept together outside their cell doors. One cell has been furnished to look as it might have done in Luther’s time. It is austere, and the monks’ daily routine meant they were often underfed.
However, St Augustine’s Monastery contained a special jewel: the library. You can still visit it today. It contains 60,000 volumes, including some 3,500 books from the 17th century and 100 manuscripts from the 12th to 18th centuries. In this library, Luther began to read the Bible – an activity not especially encouraged.
It was through these readings that he came to question the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. A permanent exhibition entitled Bible-monastery-luther explores Luther’s time in the monastery and the development of his reforming views.
The monastery itself, which dates from the 12th century, was deeply affected both by the Reformation and subsequent events in German history. In 1525, it became a Lutheran monastery and in 1556 it was secularised and turned into an orphanage. It was reconsecrated as a Protestant monastery in 1851. Less than 100 years later, in 1945, much of it was destroyed in a British bombing raid. Only after the fall of communism in 1989 was restoration work that began in 1946 finally completed.
It is a curious anomaly in this Reformation year that many of the Luther sites lie in the former East Germany, which is largely secular. Church attendance fell dramatically in the communist years and has not recovered. Many churches in the area have been converted into theatres and community centres.
This makes a wider consideration of Luther’s influence on the German language and people feel particularly pressing. There is no better place to gain perspective on Luther’s wider historical importance than at the medieval Wartburg Castle in Eisenach. Now a UNESCO World Heritage site, the Wartburg is perhaps the most important Luther site of all.
Here you can the visit the room where the great reformer began his translation of the New Testament into German after going into hiding following his heresy hearings at Worms in 1521. The translation he produced in that room didn’t just bring the Bible to the people; it laid the foundation for a standardised written German language.
A special exhibition at the Wartburg entitled Luther and the Germans runs until 5 November. It helps to explain Luther’s cultural as well as religious importance in Germany and beyond – not least here on British shores.
It was after a visit to Luther in 1525 that the great English linguist William Tyndale produced the first ever English translation of the New Testament. This gave ordinary people in the English-speaking world direct access to the word of God – just as Luther’s translation had done in the German-speaking world.
Fiona Rintoul is a writer and translator. Her first novel, The Leipzig Affair, is set in the former East Germany.
Easyjet (www.easyjet.com) flies from Edinburgh to Berlin Schönefeld,
from £52 return. Train travel from Berlin Schönefeld to Erfurt takes about 2½ hours. A single saver ticket costs €49.90 (www.trainline.eu). See visit-thuringia.com for accommodation which ranges from €50 to €155 per night for a standard double room.