Features:

Eisleben festival to recall Luther's baptism and ours

Church where Luther was baptized wants 525 congregations to participate in baptism festival

Five hundred and twenty-five years ago this Nov. 11, Hans and Margarethe Luther brought their son to St. Peter Church in Eisleben, Germany, for baptism. Named for the saint commemorated on the day he was born, Nov. 10, young Martin would grow up with a vocation from God to reform the church and the world.

Wittenberg, where Luther was a professor at the university, may be the place where he began the campaign to reform the church. But Eisleben is the “cradle of the Reformation,” says Scott A. Moore, shown at the font resculpted from the remains that stood during Luther’s time.

This fall that same Lutheran parish wants 525 congregations around the world to participate in a “Baptism Festival,” remembering Luther’s baptism and the baptismal grace active in the world today.

Scott A. Moore, an ELCA pastor, who with his wife, Claudia Bergmann, a German-born pastor also on the ELCA roster, serves the parish in Eisleben, is inviting congregations to register their baptisms or baptismal festivals with the church. The symbolic connection is intended to lift up the significance of baptism for the people in Germany and encourage all those around the world who participate to reflect on the meaning of baptism for life today.

The rest of this article is only available to subscribers.