German Interchurch Families’ Conference, Braunfels, 6-8 February 2004

Ein Bericht von Claire Malone-Lee, Abgesandte unserer englischen Partnerorganisation

Ein Bericht unsers Gastes von der Association of Interchurch Families

It was an enormous treat to be back with the German interchurch families’ group for their weekend conference. I say this, because they make clear from their warm welcome how much they value a continuing contact with interchurch families from the UK. So greetings and memories of previous AIF visitors, Melanie Finch, the Reardons, John and Vita Jenkins last year, were exchanged with an immediate enthusiasm, and partings filled with a hope for the contact to continue. What was particularly impressive was to see the sensitivity with which newcomers, and relative newcomers to the group were welcomed and encouraged and valued for their contributions, and to see some of the fruits of the outreach which their hard work in supporting the ecumenical Kirchentag in June had brought.

16 couples and 19 children, together with other half couples like myself, local church representatives, and other people with an ecumenical interest, formed the conference group. The children, all 19 of them, were very ably cared for and entertained by one young woman trainee teacher. The other helper had fallen sick at the very last minute. The start of the Friday evening meeting, after supper, brought all together in a large circle in the meeting room, round a candle, flowers, a pile of stones, and a large, circling rope enclosing the stones and circling our feet in strange convolutions.

Representing the local churches at the meeting were Martin Klaedtke, the Bischöfliches Ordinariat who acts as Catechumenate representative for the RC Diocese of Limburg; Superintendent Rainer Kunich from the EK (Evangelische Kirche) circle in nearby Wetzlar; and Superintendent Roland Rust from the EK in Braunfels, on his home territory at Haus Höhenblick. All spoke with enthusiasm of their invitation to be with the group, and to learn more from interchurch families themselves of their experiences. In introducing themselves, Superintendent Kunich told us that church buildings in Wetzlar had been destroyed during the second world war, and that since then, the Catholic Church and the Evangelische Kirche had shared one cathedral. Superintendent Rust spoke of the way in which he saw the situation for the church groups. Each had a history of having been dominant in some parts of Germany, a small minority in other parts, and each had its own history of being dominant in some places, experiencing domination in others. He was interested in how within a marriage it could be possible for an equal partnership to develop.

The first session was a wonderfully imaginative exercise in sharing interchurch family experiences. We were invited, children and adults, each to take a stone, and to name it, writing its name on a small coloured square of paper, each of us was to name our stone with a name which expressed out experience of interchurch marriage. Then we were asked to place our stone, with its name, in our home area within the rope. It was at this stage that we realised that the rope was laid out in the shape of Germany. So my stone was on its own out in the North Sea somewhere, but people were very sympathetic about this. What was most interesting was to see the scatter from which people had come within Germany. No longer was the group confined to the area around Neresheim, where conferences had been held for many years. Now people were coming together from all over Germany, from Hamburg to the north, out to the west, across to the border with Poland, down to southern Germany. We then took turns to speak the names our stones, to describe the thoughts behind the words that we had chosen. The children spoke first, then left us for their own group. They had used a great variety of words to express their sense of being interchurch children, and this continued as their parents and the other couples spoke freely and openly of the paths they were travelling in their interchurch marriages. The over riding theme was of the enrichment within couples’ experiences, but the stories did not hide some painful journeys and continuing difficult questions. The absence of any critical expression, any suggestion of a right or wrong path, opened the way for people to continue to talk informally throughout the weekend in a positive and mutually supportive way. The ecumenical visitors commented on one particular, recurring theme – that of the crucial role played by local clergy, in supporting or in undermining the couples’ and families’ journeys in faith together. It was hugely encouraging to hear from one couple of the break through in understanding, and the support now being offered to interchurch families at the diocesan level in one Roman Catholic diocese.

Our evening session ended with prayers. Each of us who wished to do so was invited to take a small candle, light it from the central candle, place it on the floor in the centre of Germany to form a cross of light, and to say a prayer as we did so. After each third candle we sang together ‘Oh Lord, hear my prayer…when I call, answer me’. We sang in English. Then we were led in further simple prayers together, round the lighted cross.

Refreshed the following morning by a good breakfast, with black German bread (one of the extra reasons for going to Germany), we were ready to sing together with the children songs of welcome and of praise. Hans Georg Link, an old friend of the Reardons from WCC days, now working in an ecumenical partnership in Cologne and linking with the ecumenical partnership in Liverpool, joined us as a fellow member of the group. We sat for nearly two and a half concentrated hours, missing the mid morning break scheduled, over running and doing away with the group session, listening, asking questions, discussing answers, spell bound and completely absorbed by the presentation by Manfred Kock. Manfred Kock till 1997 was President of the Evangelische Kirche in the Rheinland, and from 1997 to 2003 was Chairman of the Council of the Evangelische Kirche in Germany.

He capture our imaginations with his starting story, the story of his grandparents; of how they had fallen in love across the church divide, and been forbidden to marry; of the birth of his father, the lack of recognition of their marriage, the excommunication of his grandmother; of the role she had played as an outstandingly devout member of her adopted parish, and of her longing to return to be able to receive the sacraments in her native church. A master story teller, his ability to combine tears and laughter continued throughout his presentation.

He spoke in great depth, depths my German couldn’t reach. But he spoke of five stepping stones on the path towards unity. The first, to give thanks for what has been achieved. The second, not to see the complications on the way in a negative light, but to engage with them, refusing superficial compromise that could mask the need for more intensive dialogue. The third, to clarify what we mean when we speak about unity. He commended Cardinal Kasper’s comments in 2001 that what is needed is a greater understanding and respect by each other of the ways in which each church understands itself as church. The fourth step, for each church internally to explore the ideas of the other and to allow them to shed light on one’s own – so the Evangelishche Kirche is enriched by exploring Roman Catholic Eucharistic practices, the Roman Catholic Church by the Evangelische Kirche’s biblical understanding. The fifth step, the future, the tension between the already and the not yet. This is where he sees interchurch families situated.

President Kock went on to speak of the significance of the Kirchentag. The unity that already exists in baptism had been taken seriously, explored together, lived out together. God’s promise of unity was not an end in itself, but ‘that the world may believe’. From an Evangelische perspective, he said, we are only truly ‘Evangelisch’ when we are ecumenical.

The question and discussion session that followed was so searching, deepening, engaging, that all interest in breaking to do something else disappeared until it was time for lunch. In the course of the questions, Manfred Kock told us a good story of the congregation whose priest had given out a notice, in church, that in future there was to be no clapping in church. Clapping in church was strictly forbidden from now on. At which the congregation burst into spontaneous and enthusiastic clapping.

Those couples who have volunteered to be contact points for enquirers at a local level throughout Germany met after lunch to discuss the way forward. The others had a slightly longer break.

The afternoon speaker, Professor Doctor Dorothea Sattler, is an eminent young Roman Catholic theologian who has written widely on questions of church, eucharist, ecumenenism, and who came to the conference fresh from the German RC Bishops’ Ecumenical Commission meeting. She spoke a theological language not easy for me to follow. Both she and Manfred Kock will make their presentations available for the German interchurch families’ web page, where I hope to see what they really did say! It seemed to me that she was speaking of the existential importance of the interchurch family experience in the ecumenical movement, and for Christian unity, because of the centrality, within the concept of Church, of a mystical, inner experience of God as within the actions of a person drawn into relationship with another, giving up for another, being open to love within a personal encounter that involved saying ‘yes’ to God within the affirming ‘yes’ to the other. (This is an example of sentence length.) That the loving partnership is central to the union that is the Church, a union that exists essentially for the sake of the other, whose meaning lies outside itself, in its relationships with others.

The ecumenical partnership of Church is about remembering, of considering wounds, of looking at past brokeness in order to find new perspectives. The dialogue about justification engaged in this. She talked about looking round together, and forwards together, and about asking gospel questions and faith questions together.

Church is about witnessing to the resurrection as a central, continuing action. The nature of being an apostle is not to keep one’s joy to oneself but to witness to it for the sake of other people. She had given us a handout that included poems by Silja Walter and Ingeborg Bachmann, and several pictures. She drew our attention to a manuscript illustration. Mary Magdalen is witnessing to the resurrection, holding out one hand outstretched to the eleven disciples. They are watching her intently. With her other hand, Mary is pointing, demonstrating, teaching,

The essential, grounded nature of Church is to be enriched by the diversity within it, to have the freedom of a community that includes many sides, many cultures, all ages. The image of church as living stones she sees not as stones coming together to form one building, but as of people finding ways wherever they are to create living community. Holiness belongs to God alone, but we are called to the path to becoming holy, and to bear witness to our particular experience of God’s call.

Within creation theology, insights are developing into ‘catholic’ as a call to work with all who have a care for the life of God’s creation.

One, holy, catholic and apostolic church. An apostolic church is a church of Easter witness, a witness that it cannot keep to itself.

Dorothea Sattler spoke also of open questions of the ecumenical journey. How does the local baptised community grow in understanding of itself, of the implications of being such? Is ministry functional or personal? How is the concept of episcopacy rooted in the New Testament? How has and does form change take place? What form should super regional oversight take? How does the papal office relate to service? What about the papal and cardinal election process? How is God’s choice able to become manifest, in difficult situations?

Her ecumenical Church outlook for was to look towards a lived spiritual community that could pray and celebrate together; to look especially for liturgical and other forms of Easter celebration together.

She spoke of the work of the Ecumenical Commission of the German Bishops’ conference, of its need to measure its work against what happens elsewhere, of the continuing work to be done over the situation for interchurch couples and eucharistic hospitality. Serious theological consideration is needed over the way in which the exception of ‘grave spiritual need’ relates to their situation. But because of outstanding differences of understanding of the nature of the sacraments and ministerial/priestly ordination between the churches, there is as yet no way that reciprocal hospitality can be formally recognised. The consideration by the Roman Catholic Bishops in Germany can at present be only one sided.

Four groups followed Dorothea Sattler’s presentation. One worked on creating, practical, visual, tactile images, models, of Christian Unity, and we enjoyed sitting later in the evening with their addition to the map of Germany in the circle at our feet. Two groups went on talking; one discussed concrete steps forward, one shared present experiences of local situations, whether ahead on the road of committed working together, or further back on the path. The fourth, which I joined, had the wonderful experience of listening to musical interpretations of the ‘Credo’, from Bach to the late twentieth century, put together by Gudrun Steineck for those who wanted to rest from spoken words….

After supper the Laubers showed slides, first of the Kirchentag, and the work that the German interchurch family network had been engaged in there, and then of the Rome conference. The work that the international PrepRoma committee had done to make this possible was spoken of with great appreciation, as was the continuing progress on behalf of interchurch families through the recognition achieved at European level, and the dialogue begun with the conferences of European bishops, Catholic, and Protestant/Anglican/Orthodox.

The Sunday morning programme was of worship and final discussions, but I had to make my apologies because of Sunday train connections, and the need to catch the last train home to Braintree by the end of the day. I should like to thank the German interchurch families very much for their great hospitality, and to congratulate them on a very well organised conference, where there was a palpable sense of a loving and mutually respectful community growing in insight and purpose together.

Claire Malone-Lee, Association of Interchurch Families