Long night of the churches

The Long Night of the Churches is a joint action by various churches that has been carried out every summer at different locations since around 2003.

The Long Night of the Churches took place in Hanover on September 21, 2012 for the sixth time

overview

The name is based on action days in the event form of the Long Nights (e.g. Long Night of Museums , Long Night of Research ). On the one hand, it would like to offer interested outsiders a glimpse “behind the scenes”, on the other hand, to show Christians themselves the diversity of their communities and to promote cooperation between the parishes .

Germany

Frankfurt

The “Night of the Churches” has existed in Frankfurt am Main since 1995 . The Protestant and Catholic inner-city churches as well as the Dreikönigskirche (Frankfurt) in Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen participate .

Hall

The HALLESCHE NIGHT OF THE CHURCHES has been celebrated in Halle (Saale) on every third Saturday in August since 2001. This makes it the oldest church night in Central Germany. Every year around 7500 visitors visit this ecumenical summer festival. An average of 50 churches and parish halls take part in the church night. The organizer is the Christian Churches Working Group in Halle (Saale).

Hanover

Since 2003 the "Long Night of the Churches in Hanover" has been celebrated with great participation. Based on the initiative of the Evangelical Lutheran City Church Association of Hanover , other Christian church and faith communities are invited to participate under the motto “The night is not just for sleeping…” so that the Long Night is ecumenical from the start.

Between 60 and 70 churches have participated in the nights in recent years. An extensive program booklet helps with orientation, because hundreds of individual events in the spectrum between cultural and culinary delights, between silence and spectacle, between poetry and politics, between jokes and spirituality each add up to a multifaceted offer of more than 400 hours. Admission is basically free.

“We want to show the outside world what we want, what we can do and what we have to offer,” is how city superintendent Wolfgang Puschmann outlines the basic idea behind the “Long Night”. Puschmann is the top spiritual representative of the city church association and, among other things, chairman of the project group for the Long Night of Churches, in which “the houses of worship are the real stars”.

The 1st Long Night of the Churches was celebrated on September 5, 2003. The premiere in the capital of Lower Saxony exceeded all expectations. The organizers had expected around 15,000 visitors. More than three times as many were counted in the churches.

The 2nd Long Night of the Churches on September 3, 2004 in Hanover coincided with the 30th German Evangelical Church Congress in Hanover , which in May 2005 brought together hundreds of thousands of people. At this meeting of Christians a long church day was celebrated on Saturday night.

The 3rd Long Night of the Churches on September 8th, 2006 was once again a foray through the many possibilities of church life. Volunteers and full-time employees conveyed the inviting hospitality of the churches with enormous commitment and high creativity, which offered an attractive program.

Another premiere was the 4th Long Night of the Churches on September 5, 2008, which at the same time set the mood for the “Fourth International Gospel Church Day”, which brought together more than 4,000 gospel singers in Hanover from September 5 to 7, 2008. In 30 of the more than 60 churches participating in the Long Night, the second half of the night was dedicated to gospel. More than 60 choirs from all over Germany performed.

In the book "Long Night of the Churches" published by Wolfgang Puschmann, the underlying concepts are explained, the possibilities and limits of the "Long Night" format are discussed and experiences are reflected upon. Practical information round off this basic work on the Long Night of the Churches.

Hamburg

The "Night of the Churches Hamburg" is the largest ecumenical festival in the north. Since 2004 around 140 churches have opened their doors every year and invite you to a variety of programs, each bundled under a motto such as B. “Let there be light”, “With heavenly sounds” or “Earth heaven”.

With 69,000 visitors (in 2010), the Hamburg Church Night is one of the major cultural events in the Hanseatic city. The organizers are the Protestant churches in Hamburg , the Archdiocese of Hamburg and the congregations in the Working Group of Christian Churches in Hamburg. The Night of the Churches in Hamburg is particularly aimed at people who have a distant relationship to the church and shows the churches inviting, appealing and open.

Austria

View of St. Stephen's Cathedral during the Long Night of the Churches 2007

Video installation Origin in the parish church of the Holy Blood, Graz as part of the Long Night of Churches in Austria 2013

The “Long Night of the Churches” in Austria is a joint action by all 16 churches represented in the World Council of Churches, which has been held annually in May or June since 2005. In the first two years around 200 churches or parishes each offered over 1,000 events - all with free admission - which were attended by around 100,000 and 110,000 people respectively.

2006 was the "Long Night" on 9/10. June and stood under a motto from the biblical book of judges (Judges 19,6): "Stay over night and let your heart be in good spirits" . In addition to Vienna, events took place in other places, including in Upper Austria's capital Linz and in Wiener Neustadt .

Around 200 churches opened their doors at 6 p.m. after the bells had rung for 10 minutes and offered a total of 1,100 program items for visitors, which were repeated in a relaxed cycle until 1 a.m. or longer. In the early afternoon there were various children's programs , including a. in the Cathedral and Diocesan Museum. Many parishes offered special topics from social or pastoral areas for participation, meditation or discussion, dance and church music (including Mozart , gospels or Gregorian chant ), but also impulses for times of silence or for married couples. Elsewhere, art tours, underground passages or climbing church towers were possible. St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna presented its gothic interior, over 100 m long, with a light installation , after dedicating itself to the topic of ecumenism in 2005 .

On June 1st 2007 the Long Night of the Churches took place for the third time. Under the motto "My soul longs for you in the night, my spirit is also full of longing for you" (Isa 26,9), this time not only in Vienna, but also in Linz, Graz, Klagenfurt and Salzburg a total of more than 160,000 People in more than 260 open churches. More than 1,500 program items were offered. St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna received special attention. It was bathed in colored light with a light and cloth installation by the German artist Stefan Knor under the motto “You wrap yourself in light like a dress” (Psalm 104) and became one for more than 40,000 visitors A place of wonder.

In 2008 the “Long Night of the Churches” was held on May 30th, in which all ten Austrian dioceses took part for the first time . Its motto was: “One day tells the other, one night tells the other”, a quote from Psalm 19, verse 3. A program was offered in more than 500 churches. The number of visitors throughout Austria was estimated at 275,000.

During the fifth “Long Night of the Churches” on June 5, 2009, more than 3,000 program items were offered in more than 700 churches across Austria. The motto of the event was “Yours is the day, yours is also the night, you have placed the sun and the moon” (Ps. 74, 16). The organizers estimated the number of visitors at 310,000.

In 2009 the spark of the “Long Night of the Churches” also spread to neighboring countries. In South Tyrol and Slovenia some churches had their gates open. Here too there was great enthusiasm for the event.

In 2010 the “Long Night of the Churches” was held. On May 28, more than 700 churches in Austria opened their gates. All Austrian dioceses took part in the "Long Night". According to estimates by the organizers, there were 350,000 visitors throughout Austria.

During the “Long Night of the Churches” on May 27, 2011, 3,300 individual events were offered in 715 churches in Austria. The number of visitors was estimated at almost 310,000. At the same time, around 100 churches opened their doors in the Czech Republic and in the Slovak Archdiocese of Trnava . One day later, 5 churches in the Hungarian city of Sopron invited to the "Templomok Éjszakája".

Similar to the Long Night of the Churches, a Long Night of the Mosques , organized by the Islamic Federation of Vienna , was held in Vienna for the first time in November 2011 .

During the “Long Night of the Churches” on June 1, 2012, more than 320,000 visitors came to 2,600 different program items; on May 24, 2013, an estimated 330,000 people attended 3,250 events in 739 churches.

The 10th Long Night of the Churches took place on May 23, 2014. A total of 762 churches of all Christian denominations between Arlberg and Neusiedlersee and in South Tyrol took part with more than 3200 program items. In the seven hours from 6 p.m. to 1 a.m., the churches offered a total of more than 4,500 hours of program.

In 2015, the 11th Long Night of Churches was attended by over 350,000 people on May 29th. More than 3200 program items were offered in around 800 open churches, monasteries and parish centers in Austria and South Tyrol. In the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Estonia, almost 1,600 churches were open to visitors at the same time.

The Long Night of Churches 2016 took place on June 10th and was attended by 330,000 people.

In 2017, the doors of the churches were opened on June 9th. “Reconciled diversity” was the name given by the Viennese Episcopal Vicar Dariusz Schutzki as the key word for the 13th edition of the nationwide event. In keeping with this, the 500th anniversary of the Reformation was also honored in a number of program items.

On Friday, May 25, 2018, the 14th ecumenical “Long Night of Churches” took place across Austria. In the parish churches, parsonages or in unusual places, the major project took place under the biblical word: They also stayed overnight around the house of God. (1 Chr 9.27) "took place. At the most important ecumenical major event with 2,500 program items nationwide in 620 churches, the focus was on the commemorative year 2018 and social church work.

The 15th Long Night of the Churches was on May 24th, 2019. When the weather was surprisingly good, more than 340,000 people were out and about to take part in the program in and around the churches.

Czech Republic

On May 29, 2009 the first "Noc kostelů" was held in the dioceses of Brno and Pilsen with events in 35 churches. On May 28, 2010, all Czech dioceses took part in the "Noc kostelů". More than 200 churches were open. On May 27, 2011, more than 800 churches took part in the “Noc kostelů”. On May 29, 2015, the "Noc kostelů" was held in large parts of the country.