Bishop Reinhart Guib on Reform in Romania, 500 years later: People come to church and services more than ever
2017 marks 500 years since Marin Luther’s Protestant Reform. The Lutheran evangelical church across the world marks the jubilee with a long series of religious and cultural events. „Year of Luther 2017” will also be celebrated at a reunion of Transylvanian Saxons due to take place in Sibiu on August 4-6. „We owe our identity to Reform”, says Reinhart Guib, bishop of the Evangelical Church C.A. in Romania, in an interview with DW.
According to Guib, Reform was the most important moment in the history of Transylvanian Saxons – a community that has lived in Transylvania for centuries, before leaving en masse after the fall of communism. Reform, he said, brought the establishment of the community as a people and a church, a community that lives on beyond Romania’s borders, in the united Europe.
- „To Reform we owe our identify, that is our mother tongue, education and learning, the rich tradition of church music, deaconry, parishioners’ contribution to decision making, the faith in God, the blessing, the availability to engage in talk about life and faith with those of other faiths or opinions”, he said.
Considering that most Transylvanian Saxons have left Romania, Bishop Guib said the church here has a future as churches everywhere exist when there are faithful people around. The Evangelical Church C.A. in Romania, which also serves as the church of Transylvanian Saxons, has a future despite some of traditions being lost and villages disappeared. But today there is a stronger then ever inflow of people to churches and church services, he said, as the church also gets involved in building shelters for the elderly and deaconry centers and supports German and Evangelical education.
Full interview in Romanian – here
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