Easter sermons in Germany focus on renewal, condemn war in Ukraine

 

BERLIN – German church leaders focused on renewal and the war in Ukraine during their Easter Sunday sermons.

The president of the German Bishops’ Conference, Georg Bätzing, called for the renewal of the Catholic Church in his homily, while Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki of Cologne described the war in Ukraine as a low point in the history of civilization.

“There is no alternative to conversion and renewal,” said Bätzing, who is bishop of the diocese of Limburg in western Germany, according to the text of his sermon distributed in advance.

He said that the Catholic Church had developed a firm core of faith convictions in laborious and often controversial processes. This could give the faithful support and orientation. “However, this is possibly much less than thick dogmatic manuals seem to suggest,” Bätzing said.

Woelki chose to focus on the war in Ukraine.

“This terrible war in Ukraine, which has now been raging for 410 days, is one of the darkest in the history of our so-called modern civilization,” Woelki said. He made his comments in his sermon on Easter Sunday in Cologne Cathedral, according to the text also distributed in advance.

“Brutal destruction and death everywhere you look. Untold suffering and tears for millions of people,” Woelki said. The number of people fleeing war, conflict and persecution worldwide has never been as high as it is at present, the cardinal said.

Protestant leaders agreed with Woelki. Annette Kurschus, chairwoman of the council of the official Protestant Church in Germany (EKD), called on people not to be paralysed by the many crises in the world, according to a statement from the EKD.

“The storm of war continues to sweep over the people in Ukraine,” said Kurschus, who is also president of the Protestant Church in the region of Westphalia. Easter, however, is God’s powerful counter-speech against everything that seems deadlocked and without prospects.

Protestant theologian Thorsten Latzel said that without faith in the resurrection, Jesus would only be an innocent man executed, “another regrettable victim of those in power in this world.”

“Then on Golgotha as today in Bucha, Tehran, Idlib, Kabul,” he said, drawing a comparison between the site of Jesus’ suffering on the cross and the scenes of war and conflict today.

But Christians believe that death is not the end of everything, though believing this is not easy, said Latzel, who is president of the official Protestant Church in Germany’s Rheinland.

On Easter Sunday, according to biblical tradition, Christians celebrate Jesus rising from the dead three days after his crucifixion.