05580
Oct. 26, 2005

Transforming grace

Dresden church illustrates
WCC assembly theme,
rising from the rubble, a sign
of God’s vision for the world

Editor’s note:This is the third in a series of background articles leading up to the 9th Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC), Feb. 14-23, in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Two PC(USA) journalists will help cover the Assembly: Eva Stimson, editor of Presbyterians Today, will serve on the WCC staff as co-editor of the daily Assembly newspaper, and Jerry L. Van Marter, coordinator of the Presbyterian News Service, will serve as a reporter for Ecumenical News International, a Geneva-based religious news agency.

by Margot Kaessmann

     For me, and for many other Germans, this is a powerful sign of the grace of God.

     Frauenkirche, a monument of Lutheran Baroque constructed between 1726 and 1743, was Germany’s largest Protestant church, a landmark in a city known as “Florence on the Elbe.”

     Less than three months before the end of World War II, on Feb. 13, 1945, Dresden was destroyed by bombers from British Royal Air Force. A huge firestorm virtually demolished the entire city. More than 40.000 people — including large numbers of women, children, wounded people and refugees — were killed.

     Yet there had been a miracle: About 300 people, mainly women and children, who had taken refuge in the church and stayed until the morning of Feb. 14, all survived.

Walter Bau Architects

Republic, the ruins of the the Frauenkirche 
stood as a mute reminder of German guilt, a call to peace, a witness against war. I remember vividly a vigil held there during a World Council of Churches (WCC) conference advocating justice, peace and the integrity of creation. You could feel that times were changing. The ecumenical movement was encouraging Christians to stand up for peace and justice.     So the Frauenkirche ruin was one of the places where the cry for freedom and democracy was clearly heard. The insistent call of “No violence!” was carried from the churches onto the streets of Dresden — and Leipzig and East Berlin. The non-violent reunification of Germany in 1989 was the ultimate result.

     In 1992, the city of Dresden agreed to rebuild the Frauenkirche. Many felt that this was a mistake; they thought it should be left to serve as a reminder of the suffering, and the guilt. Christians from all over the world gave money for the restoration. And the building was reconstructed, faster than anyone might have imagined.

     On June 22, 2004, a new cross was planted on the church’s cupola — a gift of the British people.

     Some of the old stones were used in the new building: scars of history, scars of life.

     The ostensibly secularized people of the former East Germany are discovering this remarkable church.

     For me, Dresden’s story is a symbol of reconciliation, a sign of God's grace that transforms the world, the theme of the upcoming WCC Assembly in Brazil. It invites us to reflect on the fruits of human hatred and perverse ideology.

     It is the same with human life, I believe: We go wrong, we are misled, but God grants us a new beginning. Even when life is destroyed, when we see no future ahead, only fighting and misery, God will save our lives, as God saved those people sheltering in the Dresden church. That is grace. Grace for those who live and for those who die — because this grace does not end at the borders of life as we know it.

     God’s grace also makes reconciliation possible. It was a special moment when the cross from Britain was put on top of the Frauenkirche. The church of Saxony gave a small replica of that cross to our church in Hanover, as a reminder that, during the years of division by the Berlin Wall, our churches stayed in close partnership.

     For me, God’s grace teaches humility and respect for the generations of faith before us. When I visited the Dresden church four years ago, I saw what great inventors our fathers and mothers in faith were, long before the innovations of technology.

     Grace is the source of life, of reconciliation, of hope for peace and justice. And it is a sign of God’s vision for this world, sometimes visible even to those who do not believe.

     When I see all those tourists waiting in long lines to see the Frauenkirche, I think: Aren’t there indeed many ways for God’s word to transform the world and pierce the heart of the people?

     Sometimes it may be a church that is built and destroyed, and built again.