wfn.org | Poland: Catholics return church to Lutherans

[FRANK_IMHOFF.parti@ecunet.org (FRANK IMHOFF)]

Action signifies forgiveness, peace

SIEMIANOWICE, Poland/GENEVA 31 January 2000 (lwi) - The Martin Luther
Church, illegally annexed to the Polish Catholic Church for more than
half a century, has now been officially returned to the Evangelical
Church of the Augsburg Confession in Poland.

According to the Evangelical Lutheran church's information office, the
hand over ceremony took place on 16 January 2000 during an ecumenical
service in Siemianowiche, southern Poland, and was witnessed by guests
from both churches as well as ecumenical visitors.

Built by the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Poland in
1895, the Martin Luther Church was illegally annexed to the Catholic
side after the Second World War with the consensus of the Communist
authorities, and was used by nuns for more than 50 years. Lutheran
worship services meanwhile took place in a vicarage.

Delivering the sermon during the recent ceremony, Bishop Szarek, head of
the Lutheran church in Poland, heartily thanked the Catholic Archbishop
Damian Zimon for his involvement and his friendly accommodating nature
throughout this process, pointing out that the end result was a symbol
of forgiveness and peace between both confessional bodies.

Meanwhile, the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity took special
significance and character in Poland. On 23 January, at the Trinity
Lutheran Church in Warsaw, seven churches - the Catholic and six others
from the eight-member Polish Ecumenical Council excluding the Baptists -
signed a joint declaration in which they acknowledge mutual recognition
of Baptism. The declaration is a result of the work of the joint
committee established for the dialogue between the Catholic Church and
the Council in 1998 under the leadership of Lutheran Bishop Szarek and
Catholic Archbishop Alfons Nossol.

Delivering his address at the declaration signing, Szarek, who is also
the chairperson of the Ecumenical Council, described the common path of
churches in Poland, which began in the early 60s, and expressed the hope
that further steps should be made. This would include the establishment
of a bilateral committee to look into the current ecumenical problems
between the Catholic and Lutheran churches.

(The LWF is a global communion of 128 member churches in 70 countries
representing nearly 59.5 million of the world's 63.1 million Lutherans.
Its highest decision-making body is the Assembly held every six or seven
years. Between Assemblies, the LWF is governed by a 49-member Council,
which meets annually, and by its Executive Committee. The LWF
secretariat is located in Geneva, Switzerland.)

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Lutheran World Information
Assistant Editor, English: Pauline Mumia
E-mail: pmu@lutheranworld.org
http://www.lutheranworld.org/