Luthers Hochzeit

Imagine Wittenberg in 1517. Feudalism reigns, the Plague looms ominously on the horizon, the Church simmers restlessly... and one blustery October day, a monk and college professor makes his mark on history with the posting of 95 theses against the religious monopoly. Religious chaos breaks loose, people choose sides, rulers are converted. The church feels the attack like thousands of Lilliputian arrows piercing Gulliver's side. She shifts and expels a long sigh... along with the monk, who, now banished to the outside, is forced to change his revolutionary stance. A new church is born.

A good man of the time had a good woman by his side. Our monastic hero found his nun of choice and they joined forces in 1525, creating a dynamic duo whose life and work reshaped the history of this town. That wedding takes place again and again, every year about this time. This weekend the wedding of Martin Luther and Katharina von Bora will be reenacted with the whole town as active participants, celebrated with parades and church services, concerts and markets and festivals. Today the whole city was whispering in anticipation as trucks lined up behind the castle to deliver wooden booths and port-a-potties to the city courtyards and market squares, as scaffolding was cranked up and stages erected, as the city subtly transformed itself into the way things used to be.

Today, the winding cobblestone roads have shed their 21st-century veneer and horses and carts have replaced the Mercedes and Volkswagens. Booths are being constructed, costumes donned. Tomorrow things begin in earnest, and since the whole town's the stage, we'll even have to pay the admission fee to walk down the medieval pedestrian zone to my apartment.