St Thomas Kirche
Today we traveled to Leipzig, a fast-growing city that has offices for Porsche and BMW, DHL and Amazon. The train station serves about 140,000 passengers every day – 90,000 for traveling and 50,000 for shopping in the attached mall.
This is a cIty of music, with an opera house and concert hall. This is the home of Bach, Schumann and Mendelssohn. The orchestra began over 200 years ago – the first civic orchestra in the world. Today it is the largest in the world with 180 instrumentalists. The current conductor also serves Boston Philharmonic.
St Thomas Church had an established choir in 1212. In 1539, the choirmaster position became paid for by city. In the early 1700s, Johann Sebastian Bach served there – he was the third choice, but the others didn’t want the responsibility of being the caretaker of the boys in the choir. The director had to live with boys too.
Bach composed a new cantata every Sunday for five years. On the top of each composition he wrote “Soli Deo Gloria” – only to the Glory of God. Bach had 20 children and the family was very poor. Only 10 children survived to adulthood. He served for 27 years, and his music was forgotten when he died.
79 years later his music was rediscovered by Mendelssohn. Bach was buried in paupers grave with two other people. They determined which remains were his by the curve of the spine and fingers from playing the organ hunched over. He was then buried in the church.
There is a Stasi museum with artifacts, equipment and displays from the East Germany days. Goethe wrote Faust in this town. A Pub built in 1525 that Goethe frequented is still there today.
Our final site of the day was St Nicholai Church, the place where the 1989 peaceful revolution began. We were blessed to have Pastor Ulrich Seidel speak to us about this. He served a church in town when all this occurred.
It is a fascinating story of the power of prayer and persistence. Being in East Germany during the Cold War meant that missiles from both sides of the Iron Curtain were pointed at you. It didn’t matter who fired their missiles, you were in the middle.
The lack of freedom, human rights and economic freedom caused the people to revolt. They couldn’t demonstrate but they could pray.
Every Monday in the summer of 1989 a prayer service was held. First there were seven in attendance. The next week some more. At first the government gave those who showed up permission to leave East Germany. Word got out and more and more showed up.
Pastor Dr. Ulrich Seidel
Lights symbolizing candles
Natalie Bergmann, Tara Hastings, Mel Wheeler, Dorinda Berkley, Martha Wendel and Pastor Charlie
The prayer services all had the same message – Love your enemies and pray for peace.
Numbers increased every Monday The prayer services all had the same message – Love your enemies and pray for peace. In the summer and autumn – 2,000 to 3,000 came to prayer services. The pastor said You could sense the presence of the Spirit of God. He said the people left more at peace than when they arrived. They promoted Martin Luther King’s call to non-violence, for non-violence defeats injustice, not people.
In the fall of 1989 the numbers swelled. All churches opened their doors. The government wanted it shut it down. So on the 9th of October, the last prayer service was to be held. Mind you this is right after the China uprising in Tiananmen Square.
The Pastor’s wife didn’t want him to go. That night 70,000 people arrived. The head of the police called to Berlin to ask what to do. No one answered the phone.
Three things the people who came to the service shared were:
- No violence
- We are the people
- Join us
They left the church and walked through the city streets carrying candles. There was no interference. The people were united. There was no stopping them. The pieces started to fall into place. Soon after this, the wall came down. One year later reunification happened.
In the courtyard outside of the church are lights that shine from the ground symbolizing the candles. And a fountain that continually flows over the edges is called “The Last Drop.”
How powerful it has been for us to hear these stories from the ones who have lived it.
Peace
Charlie