New Day in Germany

In a suburban community of the ancient Westphalian city of Bielefeld--a sprawling colony of hospitals and asylums that for nearly a century has been a center of German religious charities--120 leading Calvinists, Lutherans and Unionists gathered last week from every part of Germany. Representing Germany's 35 million Protestants, they were holding the first regular meeting of EKID (Evangelical Church in Germany), under a brand-new ecclesiastical constitution.

The only prominent churchman not on hand was the one man chiefly responsible for bringing the unification about--Lutheran Bishop Theophil Wurm of Wuerttemberg. The white-bearded grand old man of German Protestantism, who turned 80 last month, was too ill to attend.

A Modest Hut. Swiss-born Bishop Wurm has a talent for diplomacy combined with courage and administrative ability that might have taken him far in politics. The combination has come in handy: in Germany the threads of church and politics are closely intertwined, and have been for years.

When Hitler came to power, Wurm quickly became an outspoken defender of his church. So strong was his position that in 1934, after he had repeatedly criticized the Nazi regime, he was placed under only a mild house arrest. But the farmers and craftsmen of Wuerttemberg, who knew his firm handshake and his practice of answering his own doorbell, staged an angry demonstration, demanding that Bishop Wurm be released. He was. Although he continued his fight against the Nazis, they never bothered him again.

After the war was over, Bishop Wurm, at 76, was elected chairman of the council of the provisional Evangelical Church in Germany. The task before him was to pick up the pieces that Hitler had scattered when he forced the break-up of Germany's Protestant federation in 1933. Into this task, Bishop Wurm threw all his talent for diplomatic maneuvering; he wrote letters and traveled from church to church to reconcile varying viewpoints. Finally, at a meeting in Eisenach last July, the aging bishop's labors were rewarded: the church delegates unanimously adopted the constitution he had forged.

Bishop Wurm had not only succeeded in uniting the Protestant churches administratively ; he had also taken a significant step towards a spiritual unification. The new constitution, while allowing each church to retain its own viewpoint on Holy Communion, states that all German Protestants can partake of the sacrament in any German Protestant church. When the constitution was finally passed after five days of heated debate, Bishop Wurm declared: "The new German Evangelical Church is not yet a mighty cathedral; it is still a modest hut. But it is a hut in which the gospel is at home, and in which all brethren of the Protestant churches may live and grow together."

To the East. Principal task of the delegates who met at Bielefeld last week was to elect a successor to venerable Bishop Wurm. They chose another big figure in German Protestantism. Like Wurm, the new chairman, stocky, white-goateed Bishop Otto Dibelius, Lutheran Bishop of Berlin and Brandenburg, was unbending in his opposition to the Nazis. Barred from the pulpit, he defied Nazi orders against speaking and writing, and was brought to trial. When Minister for Church Affairs Hanns Kerrl shouted at him: "What right have you to speak for the Church, now that you have been dismissed from your religious duties?" Dibelius answered calmly: "Herr Minister, a Christian is never off duty."

Today, 68-year-old Bishop Dibelius is again fighting for freedom of the Church--this time, in the Russian zone of Germany, against the Communists. His fearless words, in & out of the pulpit in Berlin, have made him the outstanding spokesman of Protestantism in eastern Germany. By electing him, the Bielefeld delegates have thrown the whole weight of their support to the Church in the east.

Said new Chairman Dibelius: "The Church in the east is already firmly united in its stand. Now that the Protestant Church of all Germany has joined with us, we can carry on the fight with renewed determination."

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