Guest at the Rhine Synod

It is a valuable tradition that churches visit each other. One of the offered opportunities for this is visiting synod meetings. During these meetings Churches discuss matters that concern them at the moment. Those responsible for leading the Church meet together. The breaks are a good opportunity to maintain contacts, to network and to make plans. This year Moderator Joel Ruml and the head of the Ecumenical Department, Gerhard Frey-Reininghaus, had the opportunity to participate in the Synod of the Protestant Church in the Rhineland. It is a great synod, which had an extensive program and a good and fraternal climate, despite of all the sober businesslike discussions regarding austerity measures. It was a good experience! Moderator Ruml gave thanks in his address for the good long-standing partnership between the Protestant Church in the Rhineland and the ECCB. He also spoke of the fatigue that he notices in European Christianity and placed next to it the experience in the Czech Republic where people, although they come from a secular society, find Christian faith and have great joy in this discovery of faith. This can sometimes be experienced at the baptism of adults, for whom this can truly begin a new way of life. The Moderator then invited the new Rhenish Church President, Manfred Rekowski, to an inaugural visit to the Czech Republic, which Church President Rekowski would like to accept. In addition to the Synod program and encounters in a festive setting, the guests from abroad were also included on an excursion which led us to Castle Rheinfels, where we were carried off by a minstrel into the past of the castle. Further venues were the Collegiate Church of St. Goar and the Archives in Boppard, where we could admire archival tidbits such as the entry of the baptism of Karl Marx in the baptismal register. To visit each other’s Synods is indeed a good contribution to the maintenance of the partnership between Churches.

Gerhard Frey-Reininghaus