Travel Luther's life through these German destinations

Patricia Lefevere | Oct. 22, 2016

WITTENBERG, GERMANY — Dead 470 years, Martin Luther's light has yet to go out in Germany. Indeed, the onetime monk who taught 37 years at the University of Wittenberg and preached more than 2,000 sermons in this small German city promises to beam his light across the nation, across Europe and the world as ceremonies begin this month to mark the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation.

For Catholics who did not grow up hearing much about Luther -- at least not much that was edifying -- the year ahead promises not a revisionist history so much as a fresh look at the man who altered history by defying both the pope and the Holy Roman emperor in the early 16th century. Ahead of his time by centuries, critics concede, Luther fought for freedom of conscience, and sought to educate the faithful, especially fathers and heads of households, with his Small Catechism, and the clergy with his Big Catechism.

In a real sense, Luther stamped his spirituality and his soul's likeness upon the German language, creating a literary vessel into which he could put his translations of the Scriptures, making them accessible to all readers. Not only did such an undertaking popularize Christianity, it also became a factor in German nation-building. Luther also translated the Mass into German and wrote scores of hymns that have carried the movement across borders from generation to generation.

His legacy can be found not only in reforms introduced in the Catholic church during the Second Vatican Council, but 400 years earlier at the Council of Trent, says Luther scholar Wolfgang Thönissen of Paderborn, Germany, consultant to the international Lutheran-Roman Catholic Commission on Unity.

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