German Evangelical Church Congress 1991

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The 24th German Evangelical Church Congress in 1991 took place from June 5th to 9th, 1991 under the motto “God's Spirit frees us to live” in the Ruhr area . The President of the Kirchentag was Erhard Eppler . It was the first church convention after reunification. Of the total of 104,492 long-term participants, however, only around 10,000 came from the new federal states - fewer than in 1989 for the Kirchentag in West Berlin. Formally, the 24th was not yet an all-German Kirchentag, as the unity of the Evangelical Church in Germany was only restored a little later, with effect from June 27, 1991.

The hosts were three large cities in two regional churches:

The large distances between the venues made the Kirchentag Ruhrgebiet relatively confusing, although the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr mastered this logistical challenge.

prehistory

The initiative for a Ruhr area church convention came from the mayors of the eastern Ruhr area. The Ruhr area should be presented as a unit. The Lord Mayor of Dortmund, Günter Samtlebe , had a brochure printed in 1985: “Kirchentag in the Ruhr Area - a wish that should come true.” It presented suitable venues in the Ruhr Area. The Westphalian church leadership and the Kirchentag presidium decided to include the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland. In 1987 it was clear that the 1991 Kirchentag would take place in three cities in the central and eastern Ruhr area. This constellation was unusual; the dynamism that German post-war history developed in the years that followed could not yet be foreseen. At the conference of the regional synod of the Evangelical Church of Westphalia in November 1990, Kirchentag President Eppler warned “that the Kirchentag, which until 1961 was“ the great all-German demonstration ”, must ask, in view of reunification,“ how these Germans as a whole find their place in a peaceful Europe »."

Kirchentag slogan

The motto “God's Spirit frees us to live” was a special wish of the President of the Church Congress, Eppler. He wanted to focus on the confession of God the Holy Spirit , which traditionally receives less attention in the Protestant-regional church area. This slogan was of little use as a political telling of the time, but it had a stimulating effect in the fields of art and liturgy.

Opening event

The central opening event with the then Prime Minister Johannes Rau , Lord Mayor Samtlebe, Pastor Annemarie Schönherr and Kirchentag President Eppler took place on June 5, 1991 on Dortmund's Friedensplatz , followed by the "Evening of Encounters" around Europaplatz. 143,000 people took part.

program

In the Ruhr area affected by structural change, too, topics such as unemployment or conflicts between economic interests and ecology met with relatively little public interest. Immediately after the collapse of socialism, utopias and visions of alternative economic systems were not attractive; the market economy was as undisputed as it was seldom at church conventions.

Prominent representatives of the Protestant Church in the GDR had their say at the Kirchentag: Günter Krusche , Friedrich Schorlemmer , Gottfried Forck , Manfred Stolpe , Heino Falcke . In addition, personalities appeared who had become known through the fall of the Wall: Marianne Birthler , Joachim Gauck , Christian Führer and Wolfgang Ullmann . However, the reunification was only discussed at a few selected events. The commentator of the time said in retrospect that the Christian meeting addressed those who personally cope well with social reality and offered them a demanding talk show program; the “unemployed and frightened”, on the other hand, hardly appear.

Annemarie Schönherr had the opportunity to present the “great East German reflection” at the Ruhr Area Church Congress. She analyzed that in the past, many people of her generation “could partially identify with the socialist ideals because they were about more justice.” By contrast, the large majority of the younger generation no longer identified with the GDR. During a controversial panel discussion, Wolfgang Herles accused his interlocutor Friedrich Schorlemmer that there were “Besser-Ossis”, against whose “moral arrogance” the West Germans understandably resisted. "One shone with a fireworks display of ostensible and subtle punchlines, the other tried hard to demonstrate the archetypes of the better-Wessis ."

Global issues were the review of the Second Gulf War and the new situation after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The controversy did not materialize, so the former inspector general of the Bundeswehr Wolfgang Altenburg surprisingly agreed to the criticism of the theologian Wolfgang Huber : The Gulf War is morally and theologically unjustifiable. The colonial history of America and its effects in the present took up a lot of space; In Dortmund's Westfalenhallen there was a Latin America Day on Thursday and a so-called liturgical day "500 years of conquering America" ​​on Friday.

Centers on the way

The Ruhr Area Church Conference should be an alternative to the “Fair Church Conference”. Along the Essen-Bochum-Dortmund local transport axis, “centers along the way” and other decentralized focal points were created where topics from the region were to be discussed. There were sixteen centers along the way:

  1. University of Dortmund : resisting madness - preserving creation;
  2. Keuning House: God's city knows no strangers;
  3. Hoesch-Park : People are at the center of economic life;
  4. Catholic Center: Right to Life and Protection of Life;
  5. Wattenscheid: ways to life - ways out of addiction;
  6. Gelsenkirchen: Ecumenism: Learning to share;
  7. Mining Museum Bochum : Man between freedom and necessity;
  8. Bochum-Mitte: Women go further;
  9. Bochum-Riemke: On the spirit that blows in communities;
  10. Bochum-Langendreer: People in the data network;
  11. Essen-Steele: nursing emergency as a test of the solidarity community;
  12. Zeche Carl : Seek the city's best;
  13. Essen-Holsterhausen: How much family do people need?
  14. Kreuzeskirche Essen : On the way to a just structural change;
  15. Herne: God takes sides for the sick, indebted and hungry;
  16. Tub center: threatened with death? Discover life!

Closing service

The closing ceremony took place in Gelsenkirchen Park Stadium instead. A team led by Church Congress Pastor Rainer Degenhardt was responsible for the liturgy. The sermon was given by the Dresden Bishop Johannes Hempel .

Web links

literature

  • Konrad von Bonin (Ed.): 24th German Evangelical Church Congress. Ruhr area. Documents. Gütersloher Verlagshaus 1991, ISBN 3-579-02271-7 .
  • Rüdiger Runge (Ed.): Kirchentag '91. The reading book. 24th German Evangelical Church Congress, Ruhr area 1991. Gütersloher Verlagshaus 1991, ISBN 3-579-05103-2 , Kaiser Verlag Munich 1991, ISBN 3-459-01901-8 .
  • Katharina Kunter: Fulfilled hopes and broken dreams. Protestant churches in Germany in the field of tension between democracy and socialism (1980–1993) . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2006. ISBN 978-3-525-55745-7 .
  • Peter Siebenmorgen: In a conversational tone. There were no major controversies at the Protestant meeting in the Ruhr area. In: Die Zeit, June 14, 1991. ( online )
  • Carl Peddinghaus: The Ruhr District Church Convention 1991 - God's Spirit frees us to live. In: Günter Brakelmann et al. (Ed.): Church in the Ruhr area , Klartext Verlag, Essen 1998. ISBN 3-88474-684-7 . Pp. 430-435. ( online )

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Statistics on the Kirchentag in the Ruhr area 1991. In: Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchentag. Retrieved October 23, 2018 .
  2. ↑ a b Carl Peddinghaus: The Ruhr District Church Congress 1991 . S. 432 .
  3. ^ A b c d Peter Siebenmorgen: In a conversational tone . In: The time . June 14, 1991.
  4. ^ Heinrich Gehring: 50 Years of the Ruhr Superintendent Conference. Stations on their way . In: Günter Brakelmann (Ed.): On the trail of contemporary church history. Festschrift for Helmut Geck on his 75th birthday . LIT Verlag, Berlin 2010, p. 266-267 .
  5. ^ Church days in Dortmund. In: Church history Dortmund. December 28, 2017. Retrieved October 23, 2018 .
  6. ^ Carl Peddinghaus: The Ruhr Area Church Convention 1991 . S. 431-432 .
  7. ↑ Katharina Kunter: Fulfilled hopes and broken dreams . S. 262 .
  8. ↑ a b Katharina Kunter: Fulfilled hopes and broken dreams . S. 263 .
  9. ↑ Katharina Kunter: Fulfilled hopes and broken dreams . S. 263-264 .
  10. ^ Carl Peddinghaus: The Ruhr Area Church Convention 1991 . S. 430 .