This was our final day on the Viking Beyla. I am somewhat ambivalent about this cruise. The facilities are fine; the food is really quite good; and the crew could not be more delightful. But it is a great deal of money to spend for coming such a short distance down a fairly unimpressive waterway. There are times when a boat makes it possible to see sights in a short time that could not be seen otherwise. That is not the case with the Elbe. The land along the river is flat and open. A cycle path runs along the river for most of the distance. It would be easy to ride from Dečin to Wittenberg. There are times when a boat allows a visitor to see dramatic scenery. Other than a brief stretch of Saxon Switzerland, the land itself is not particularly interesting.
We spent today in Wittenberg, perhaps the city most closely associated with Martin Luther. This year is considered the 500th anniversary of the Reformation as Luther proposed his 95 theses on indulgences and 1517. The dramatic image of him nailing these to the castle church door is almost certainly considered to be a later historical fiction. And while the issue of indulgences and Luther’s attack on them propelled his rise to theological and later political prominence, his later positions on justification and the Eucharist were the issues that truly broke the unity of the western church. The Reformation was a process that took place over several decades. Choosing one particular date is but always arbitrary, and this particular date is a particularly arbitrary.
We were taken by bus to the Luther House where were met our guide, Oliver. He proved to be an excellent guide. He told us that he was a teacher of history and religion in the local schools here. He obviously had a strong background in theological study although it was not clear where he had studied or if at some point there had been some preparation for the ministry. We learned later that he had been raised as a Lutheran here in Wittenberg, but when he married his Italian wife he agreed to become a Roman Catholic.
The Luther house is the former Augustinian monastery at Wittenberg.
The members of that order who were teaching and studying at the University of Wittenberg lived there. Luther, of course, left the Augustinian order. But it remained as an Augustinian house until the Peasants' War when most of the students and faculty of the University fled the city. When Luther returned to Wittenberg after the end of the uprising, the Elector of Saxony gave him the building as a home. People began to call it the "Lutherhaus."
Today the Luther House is a museum devoted to the Reformation, particularly now with the celebrations for the 500 year anniversary. Oliver took us through the building.He talked a great deal about the selling of indulgences, and showed us the chest where supposedly Johannes Tetzel collected funds while informing people that “When a coin into the coffer springs, a soul form purgatory springs. “
Oliver gave us good deal of history in a lecture hall on the second floor. Unfortunately, while many of the furnishings in this room are old, few if any really date to Luther's time. Far more interesting were the Luther family personal apartment. Here we saw the room where Luther met students and discussed theology with them. The colors of the room are faded, like the from the ceiling, but still visible.
Many of these conversations were written down and are listed in Luther's works as his "Table Talks." The actual table is here.
I also saw a place that looked vaguely like a walled in staircase. According to the interpretive material on the wall, this was supposedly the tower where Luther had his tower experience. It seemed like it ought to be more prominent if that were indeed the case, and Oliver did not bother to mention it, either. Instead he pointed out Luther’s death painting and how a peaceful death was considered proof of a virtuous life. So a picture of a serenely dead Luther was an important bit of Reformation propaganda.
After we were finished with the Luther House, we spent a little time in the courtyard looking at the statue of Katharina von Bora, Luther's wife.
She appears to have been a fairly formidable figure. We know that she apparently came from an aristocratic family in Saxony, but she was sent away to a convent for education at an early age. She joined the Cistercian order later, but after a few years left with some others to join the Reform movement. She lived with Lucas Cranach the Elder and his family and apparently had a number of marriage offers. She announced, however, that she only wished to marry Luther. Somehow, even though he was far older that she was, Luther agreed to marry her. Herr Kathe, as Luther came to call her, took an active role in Reformation affairs and was an active participant in theological discussions. Today there is naturally a great deal of interest in her as there is in just about every powerful woman in church history.
After we left the Luther House, Oliver began to be a little more critical of Luther and Lutheran theology. He discussed how Luther turned from initial interest in dialogue with Jews to full-blown hatred of Jews. Oliver did distinguish "Judenhass" or "Jew hatred" from "anti-Semitism" pointing out that the latter assumes that Jews are some kind of biological instead of theological rationale for discrimination. He was hardly endorsing Luther's views, of course, but simply pointing out that racialism is a nineteenth century development. People before that time may have been bigoted, but there was no pseudo-scientific racialist justification for it.
We stopped by the town church in Wittenberg.
This was the place where Luther preached perhaps 2000 sermons and where the Lutheran liturgy, the so-called German Mass, may have first been celebrated. The pulpit is apparently not much changed from that time.
There is an old triptych over the altar, and Luther may have been involved in its design. Otherwise, the church is not particularly attractive or interesting.
We had a little break at this time. We walked through a shopping center. We found a bank and an pharmacy. We looked at a bunch of Luther and Reformation tee shirts and gifts, but decided against buying any of them.
Our tour finished at the Wittenberg Castle church. We saw the place where Luther is supposed to have nailed his theses. Today that door is gone, replaced with a bronze replica of a door with the theses written on it. Luther is supposedly buried in the cast church, perhaps somewhere near the pulpit. I tried to take a picture of the spot, but could not get past the large tour groups there. The castle church itself has been seriously rebuilt a couple times, most importantly in the late nineteenth century after the Prussians had conquered Saxony and wanted to put a Prussian accent on the events of the Reformation. The tower is particularly hideous.
We returned to the church. In the evening when we went to dinner the crew sang Happy Birthday to me and gave me a cake. It was sweet. It seems like not that long ago I was depressed about turning 40. I am not sure why turning 60 seems like so much less of a big deal. Maybe I know that the end is in sight for these long and often painful years I have spent in the classroom.
We leave early tomorrow morning. I need to pack!
