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Berlin Conference celebrates 25 years of Kirchengemeinschaft

by Andy Lang

from United Church News (online)

When the United Church of Christ and the Evangelical Church of the Union (EKU) declared “Kirchengemeinschaft” (full communion) 25 years ago, Germany was a divided country.

The EKU was divided, too. The ancestral church of the German immigrants who founded one of the UCC’s antecedent denominations, the EKU was split into “East” and “West” synods, each corresponding to the territory of the two German states. So “Kirchengemeinschaft” was a breakthrough not only in ecumenical but also in East-West relations. For East German Protestants, few of whom could travel outside the orbit of the Soviet Union , the new relationship eased their sense of isolation.

Twenty-five years later, Germany ’s Protestant churches are reunited and fragments of the Berlin Wall are for sale on eBay. The EKU has joined with other Protestants in Germany to form an expanded “Union of Evangelical Churches” (UEK). The world is no longer divided into East and West, but the UCC and UEK still face the world’s other great divide--between haves and have-nots in their own countries, and globally between North and South.  

The two churches share a ministry of reconciliation, said Bishop Ulrich Fischer of Baden during the opening service of the 25th anniversary conference in November in Berlin . “What has begun on the cross at Golgotha has meaning for living together peacefully among denominations and churches in the world, as well as for political actions by the church to achieve a world order of peace based on justice.

“Unity of the church and peace in the world–they are closely connected with each other. By Christ’s reconciling action, lines between churches will be torn down first of all, then fences and then walls. The peace which has been achieved by Christ does not stop at church walls. This peace wants to enter into the entire world.”

The Berlin conference brought together more than 100 bishops and Conference ministers, pastors, theologians and lay leaders from the partner churches. The UCC delegation was headed by General Minister and President John Thomas; UEK delegates were led by President Wilhem Hueffmeier. The conference honored the two former EKU ecumenical officers who negotiated Kirchengemeinschaft with the UCC: Christa Grengel of the EKU (East) and Reinhard Groscurth of the EKU (West).

“Twenty-five years of Kirchengemeinschaft is a reminder of the gift of ecumenical partnerships that transcend the violent realities of our world,” Thomas said after the event. “The delegates to this anniversary event found renewed strength in their full communion to address the new realities of violence and economic injustice that still mark life on this planet years after the Berlin Wall's demise.”

Thomas presented the UEK delegation with a clay sculpture by UCC artist Charles McCollough depicting a woman and man hammering a sword into a plowshare. The historic image from Isaiah was a symbol of the underground Christian peace movement in East Germany .

Today, 11 UCC Conferences are linked through bilateral partnerships with regional churches in the UEK.   Click here for more information on Kirchengemeinschaft.