Religion: Luther’s Church

On the night of Feb. 21, 1945, R.A.F. bombers made a brief but deadly trip over Worms, Germany. Next morning, when the fires died, little was left of the old Rhineland city. One of the worst casualties among its historic buildings was the 1,100-year-old Magnuskirche, where Martin Luther preached in 1521 when he came to defend his doctrines at the Diet of Worms against the Pope’s theologians. German Lutherans have since regarded the Magnuskirche as the world’s first Protestant church.

In the first postwar years, Pastor Theodor Distelmann, holding services in the ruins of the Magnuskirche, sadly wondered where the money to rebuild his church would come from. His old friend, Pastor Alfred Herrnbrodt, thought he knew a way to get some. In 1949, when the 400-year-old “Luther Elm” on Pastor Herrnbrodt’s property died, the pastor commissioned a woodcarver to make 30,000 small “Luther roses” and 500 “Luther plaques” out of the tree, which was rich in Lutheran tradition.* Sale of the mementos (plus a recently granted West German government subsidy) should bring in enough to meet rebuilding costs.

Pastor Herrnbrodt was touring the U.S. last week, arranging for the sale of his Luther mementos, already on sale in Germany and Sweden. U.S. price: roses $1, plaques $10. In Worms last week, workmen began to build a new Magnuskirche over the ruined Romanesque arches of the old one.

*Legend relates that two 16th century burghers of Worms were once arguing about the permanence of the new Protestant religion. One contended that Protestantism would soon die. The other, enraged, thrust his walking stick into the ground, shouting, “As certainly as this stick shall take root and grow into a tree, so also will Luther’s faith remain.” The stick, the story goes, grew into the 120-ft. Luther Elm.