Word: kirchentag
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Go in peace."† Despite Luther; the practice of confession became increasingly stereotyped, was finally abandoned in the 17th century. Last week its revival was a major topic in Lutheran Germany. The occasion was this year's Kirchentag in Munich (TIME, Aug. 24), where no fewer than 2,000 Protestants went to confession in the two churches designated for the purpose. Says Pastor Hans Jacob of Bensheim, who heard many of them: "For 90% of them, confession was a new experience, and all of them felt it opened...
Some Lutherans, concerned that the trend to confession represents a risky rise in clerical power that is incompatible with Protestant principles, minimize it as a flash in the pan that flares in the fervor of a Kirchentag and subsides in the cooler air of everyday life. Yet a growing number of clergymen, like Munich's Pastor Adolf Sommerauer, see a strong and rising tide. "There are those who worry that confession could become a sort of fad. There is no need to propagate it. Now that it is known throughout the church that it is available, those who need...
...Different Kind. In 1954 Kirchentag was held in East Germany's Leipzig, and in 1956 15,000 East German Protestants got exit permits from the Communists to travel to the Kirchentag in Frankfurt. But this year the Communists had other ideas...
...center greeted new arrivals, his small embarrassment at having to give them 30 marks' pocket money, the East Germans' skittishness at the approach of a Western newsman. Both East and West felt the urgency of the widening gap and tried to bridge it with words; white-haired Kirchentag President Reinhold von Thadden-Trieglaff, 68, of West Germany, spoke awkwardly in his opening speech of "the very special naturalness with which we greet our brothers...
...Community of Interest. But if the chasm between the two Germanys was growing, the gap between Catholics and Protestants was closing. In Munich Kirchentag delegates found themselves in the heart of Catholic Germany. It was the largest body of Protestants to descend on Munich since the armies of Gustavus Adolphus captured the city in 1632, and their advent was a great success. Munich's Joseph Cardinal Wendel took in Danish Bishop Frode Beyer and his wife as house guests, and many a Catholic family followed the cardinal's example. All over the city, for the Kirchentag...