Ecumenical Leaders Visit Germany to Mark 500th Anniversary of Reformation

A contingent of seven members of the Christian Reformed Church’s Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations Committee are now in Leipzig, Germany, to attend the week-long General Council of the World Council of Reformed Churches (WCRC).

Along with helping the WCRC conduct business on behalf of more than 200 Reformed churches around the world, the CRC group will join in events and visit historic sites connected to this year’s 500th anniversary of the Reformation.

They will also take part and play a role in helping to lead worship.

“We have been planning for this for well over a year, and anticipate wonderful worship services throughout our time together,” said Kathy Smith, associate director of the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship at Calvin College and a member of WCRC’s worship committee.

Worship will include an opening service in the famous St. Nicholas Church in Leipzig, where the "peace prayers" took place as part of the movement leading to the fall of the division between East Germany and West Germany in 1989, she said.

On Sunday, July 2, the General Council will go to Berlin for a worship service in the Berlin Dom/Cathedral, an event that will be televised throughout Germany and followed by a reception with government officials.

On July 5, they will visit Wittenberg for a worship service and ceremony in which two significant documents will be signed, said William Koopmans, a CRC pastor who serves as an advisor to the executive committee of the General Council.

“The first is to signify an agreement with the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification between the WCRC and the Lutheran Church,” he said, referring to the doctrine that teaches people are saved or “justified” by God’s grace through the finished work of Christ.

The second is the planned signing of the “Wittenberg Witness,” an agreement of closer cooperation between the WCRC and the Lutheran World Federation.

While in Wittenberg they will visit two churches associated with Luther. The Schlosskirche (Castle Church) is where he may or may not have posted his 95 theses which is said to have sparked the Reformation. The Stadtkirche (City Church) is where he preached for much of his life.

“It will be nice to take part in these activities and to see these places, but what is significant is that Martin Luther changed the world through the Reformation,” said Peter Borgdorff, former executive director of the CRC and one of those representing the CRC at the General Council meeting.

Besides Smith, Koopmans, and Borgdorff, CRC representatives attending the General Council are Rev. Emmett Harrison of Grand Rapids, Mich.; Rev. Anthony Elenbaas of Hamilton, Ont.; Lenore Maine of New Jersey; and Mary Buteyn, currently a missionary serving in Germany.

The WCRC General Council meets every seven years, following the creation of the WCRC as a merger of the Reformed Ecumenical Council and World Alliance of Reformed Churches in 2010 at Calvin College.

As for the General Council meeting itself, Koopmans said, “This is a significant juncture in the life of the WCRC. Staffing changes since the inception of WCRC in 2010 entail an entirely new leadership team moving into the second seven-year cycle of the organization.”

Lenore Maine said she looks forward to the discussion at the council on topics such as women's issues, human trafficking, and racism.

Also, she said, “Being able to take part in the celebration of 500 years of Reformation history in Europe is going to be life altering for me.”

Mary Buteyn, who works with her husband, David Kromminga, as a missionary in Germany, sees being at the council as “a unique opportunity and privilege. I value the opportunity to listen to, learn from and with, and join in God's mission with Reformed brothers and sisters from all around the world.”

Especially, she said, she is excited about being part of a community where Christians from the global south will be in the majority.

“It is humbling to recognize that the church in the global north is shrinking, including our Reformed denominations. What is God trying to teach us through the growing church in the global south?”

Anthony Elenbaas, who was present at Calvin College when the WCRC was founded, said for him this second gathering will be significant.

“The WCRC has played a major role in shaping my life and ministry,” but also the General Council is important “because of the visible witness it provides to the reconciliation we have in Christ, united in the Spirit as brothers and sisters who share the same Lord, faith, and baptism,” said Elenbaas.

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