Prague!

First, some updates about school. My classes started again on April 16th, and as of late I've been fairly busy. I've had two presentations to write (one large, one small), and I've also gone to Cambridge, England to  visit with the Westfield House people as well. More on that later.

I really don't have much to say about Prague; I visited it on February 26th and 27th, right after my parents returned to America. I chose Prague because it wasn't going to be a long train ride from Berlin, and it wasn't much most expensive going there and then back to Frankfurt than riding back direct from Berlin to Frankfurt.

One thing that really helped is that I stayed with an LCMS pastor who's working on international missions in the city, Pastor Tony Booker. Although he graduated shortly before I got to CTS, I had heard about him and knew that he spoke German. As it turns out, he speaks Russian as well and is learning Czech. He's the pastor of St. Michael Lutheran Church, and if you're out that way, I encourage you to meet up with him. He was very gracious to let me sleep on a spare bed/couch that he had.

He also told me a lot about Prague's history, especially about Jan Hus and his efforts at reformation there. I knew that in the Leipzig debate with Eck, Luther was called a Hussite (the term as it turns out had previously been a derogatory name for heretics), and after doing some research, he affirmed the title. He also saw himself as going farther than Hus though, because grabbed at the jugular of the problems- justification by works versus justification by faith. Hus, you see, railed against the abuses of the Roman Catholic Church in Prague, but he did not make it much of a theological problem. He saw the church as very wealthy, having been given land by wealthy land owners upon their death so that they might not go to purgatory. After years of this happening, the Roman Church owned almost all the land in the area surrounding Prague, and would give the administration of this land to various priests! So you can see that if you're renting land from a priest, and he wasn't being fair, how tensions could develop. Compound this with poor clerical morality and greater burdens on the poor, and it was a powder keg waiting to happen. And so, Jan Hus came out of that environment and criticized the practices of the Roman Church; he was later condemned and sentenced to death in 1415 at a council in Constance. This led to religious wars with the new "Hussite" movement, which burned churches and monasteries until a political-religious compromise was reached. In my mind, one can see correlations between this movement and Thomas Müntzer's Peasants' War. But anyway, there's a statue to Jan Hus in the main square of Prague; it's a nationalistic picture of him as a hero for the people rather than a reformer. It looks ugly.

Nonetheless, the history of Prague is fairly interesting. It can boast of the first university in Central Europe, in 1348; the German theologians in fact split from it in the early 15th Century during the Hus controversy  to form the Leipzig University (they were at that time in favor of the Pope and wanted to see Hus condemned as a heretic sooner than he was). It used to be the seat of the Holy Roman Emperors Charles IV and Sigismund. Under Charles IV the Prague Castle was built, and depending on how you want to measure it, is the largest castle complex in the world. See this article if you want a comparison.

I got to see the hourly changing of the guard!

The St. Vitus Cathedral was very impressive.

Also on the castle complex was the Old Royal Palace, where the current President resides.

The castle grounds commanded a stunning view of the area!

There are a few other things that Prague is known for. Their astronomical clock is very touristy, so I saw it.

I also saw the Charles Bridge, which is perhaps what Prague is most well known for. It stands where the first bridge over the Vltava River stood, which is the primary reason for the city being where it is. It has been rebuilt throughout the years in response to various floods. It is a stunning combination of a Gothic bridge with Baroque style statues lining its sides. On either end are the Old Town Bridge Tower and the Lesser Town Bridge Tower, which is on the Palace side.

Lesser Town Bridge Tower

Old Town Bridge Tower

Some statues on the bridge

I saw a lot of churches and other areas, which you can see in the full album at the bottom of this post. I can't remember most of them, but they were interesting. Also included are my pictures from the National Museum and Museum of Music. The National Museum was quite mediocre, because they were working on the largest complex and had it closed when I was there; all I saw was the newer complex with recent Czech history (since the nationalistic fervor of the mid-19th Century). The best part of the Music Museum were the barrel organs and other self-playable instruments. I was thoroughly impressed!

Finally, it's important to realize that Czechoslovakia was controlled by communist rulers after WWII, and that the people today even feel that impact. There's a strong contrast between what were known as the "Happy Bohemians" and the Czechs of today. Shortly after the downfall of the USSR, the Czech Republic and Slovakia separated in what's called the "Velvet Revolution." They are now separate countries, representing separate peoples.

I couldn't help but take this picture of the Prague Underground:

Here is the album for all the photos:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151513637768788.1073741832.500163787&type=1&l=11c677b89d

Trinity Lutheran, Norman, OK

For Vicarage, I am going to be going to Trinity Lutheran, Norman, OK. It is a congregation that has a campus ministry outreach to Oklahoma University, and I will be working with the Lutheran Youth Fellowship there. It is a wonderful congregation, and they have had a string of very good vicars, and I have heard nothing but good things from other seminarians, from profs, or from people in my own congregation who have gone there or sent their children to OU.

I am excited for it to start; right now we are looking at a July 28th installation. My classes end on the 18th, so I'm still working through various scenarios on what I need to do in those 10 days I have, but I'm sure everything will work out in the end.

http://tlcnorman.org/

Vicarage Service

The CTSFW Vicarage Call Service is tomorrow at 7pm. I'll obviously be "in absentee," but you can watch the live stream to find out where I'm going. You can follow this link: http://www.ctsfw.edu/. The list of seminarians and their matching vicarages will also be found there in a file which you can download and look at.

It's hard for me to get excited about this event when I'm not surrounded by others also receiving their assignments. I'll stay up and see where I'm going before going to bed at roughly 2am. I'll definitely post here on where I'll be going for the next year.

Also, see the below two posts concluding my parents' trip to Germany.

Pictures from our Trip of Germany

In my last post I concluded our trip by telling you about Berlin; I encourage you to read it, since this post will probably hide it from your view. But instead of posting my pictures at the bottom of that post, where they're most likely to be lost, I wanted to share them here. They are more or less in chronological order.

Part 1: Oberursel and Frankfurt
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151473448848788.1073741825.500163787&type=1&l=95ef0c23d4

Part 2: Eisenach and the Wartburg
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151473481033788.1073741826.500163787&type=1&l=f7320a5937

Part 3: Erfurt
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151473497668788.1073741827.500163787&type=1&l=53065ff0ce

Part 4: Eisleben and Wittenberg
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151473516913788.1073741828.500163787&type=1&l=adcdc4bef9

Part 5: Leipzig
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151473569028788.1073741829.500163787&type=1&l=c247f4ca81

Part 6: Dresden
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151473604203788.1073741830.500163787&type=1&l=8748912f38

Part 7: Berlin
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151473610868788.1073741831.500163787&type=1&l=95b7a1c181

I hope you enjoy them as must as we enjoyed our trip!

Continuing our Trip: Berlin

I'm finally getting around to finishing the telling of my trip with my parents back in February. Not much happened with me in March, but I just got tired of writing blog posts, and so I neglected it for a little while. Hopefully a few posts will be coming out soon.

So my parents and I got on the train from Dresden to Berlin; it was a "Eurocity" train, which was more direct, since it only stopped at major European cities. Being more direct meant that it was also quicker and fuller. I was lucky enough to have reserved seats, so we didn't have to split up. We got into Berlin about 7:00 or so, and it wasn't hard to take the various trains to Köpenick from there; if you remember, that was where I had spent my first month in Germany with Ben and Sonja Müller. They had graciously offered to host us, so there was a nice supper waiting for us. We had some beer and good conversation.

The next day we toured the Alexanderplatz and the Museum Island. Our first stop was St. Mary's, one of the oldest churches.

One of their favorite places this day was St. Nicholas' Church, where Paul Gerhardt served as pastor and Crüger as cantor.

Finally, we visited the German Historical Museum. To be honest, I think it's the best museum in Berlin because of its presentation and layout. The Pergamon and other museums in Berlin have very interesting artifacts, but they don't quite tell a story like the German Historical Museum does. I think my parents enjoyed it, though it was quite a lot of history to digest in the four hours that we were there.

We had hoped to see at least the Pergamon Museum after the German Historical Museum, but the museums in Germany close earlier than normal from November to March, so it was already closed for an hour when we tried it. This was a fitting conclusion to our attempts at visiting various places in the non-tourist season.

That evening Dad, Ben, and I went to a small brewery nearby that had a nice range of beers. We talked theology, church politics, and about our church bodies. Mom stayed back with Sonja and the baby, Noemi.

The next day was a Sunday, and we went to St. Mary's Zehlendorf, where Pastor Martens serves. Although I hadn't planned it this way, there was a gathering of theological students from around Europe also gathering at that time in Berlin, and they were at St. Mary's as well. Pastor had translated his sermon into English for them, so my parents also got a translation. I declined, but looked over the sermon later to see how much I understood.

Some pictures of St. Mary's

From there we toured Berlin some more, doing a bit more walking this time. We saw the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag, the Victory Column, and the Tiergarten first, then headed to the Holocaust Memorial. We also saw a part of the Berlin Wall, as well as Checkpoint Charlie. It was a very heavy walking day.

We returned to the Müllers, and my parents then flew out the next day fairly early in the morning. All in all, I'm glad they came and saw Germany with me. I'm rarely alone with them, since when I'm home I'm surrounded by siblings as well, so it was good to spend a longer amount of time with Mom and Dad. I know they appreciated the trip as well; they hadn't made a trip like this in a long time. So thank you, Mom and Dad, for coming. I really appreciated it.

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Continuing our trip: Leipzig and Dresden

The next day (Thursday the 21st) we toured Leipzig. We bought a day card, so we were able to take the metro first to the main train station, then to the places that were further away. The inner city was the center of most of our sight seeing- it held the Bach museum, several churches, and the city halls. This was definitely going to be our Bach day.
Our first sight was St. Nicholas' Church. It was one of the primary churches in the city, the one at which Bach primarily played, though he is buried in another city church, St. Thomas'.

The pillars and ceiling reminded me of St. Paul's- Fort Wayne- it looked like plants were growing from their top and growing into the ceiling.

This remembered Bach's position at St. Nicholas'

Leipzig University was just next door, so we took a quick look, though all of the buildings had been renovated and looked like a normal university. This was where C.F.W. Walther had graduated from, as well as Goethe, Nietzsche, and Angela Merkel. There wasn't much, so we walked further to the old city hall. Here was a monument to Goethe, the famous German poet; I think he's buried here.

But from there we visited the St. Thomas' church and the Bach museum, which was close by. Although Bach primarily played at St. Nicholas', he was buried in a small church on the outskirts of Leipzig. When it was bombed or burned to the ground, they moved his coffin to St. Thomas', where it remains today.

We got some nice pictures of the stained glass windows with Mom's camera.

We didn't get many pictures from inside the Bach museum, but it was definitely worth our time- probably in the top 5 of the places that we visited in Germany! If you ever find yourself in Leipzig, you should definitely plan on a few hours here.

We did get a picture of an organ that Bach himself probably played. It's pretty dilapidated, but they restored as much as they could, pointing out what was original and what wasn't.

Finally, we took the tram to the Battle of the Nations Monument. The Battle of the Nations occurred near Leipzig in 1813. Since this year is its 200th Anniversary, it was under construction, since they're hoping to have it beautiful and ready for the summer. The Battle of the Nations was a battle in which Napoleon and his Rhine Confederation were stopped by the Prussian, Russians, Swedes, and Austria. Involving 600,00 soldiers on both sides, it was the largest battle in Europe prior to WWI. Napoleon had been recovering from his failed Russian campaign, and his army was not the same that had conquered most of Europe. After his defeat here, the Prussians and friends pressed the attack, invading France and sending Napoleon into exile to the Island of Elba. If you know your history, Napoleon returned and was finally defeated at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, again going into exile, this time dying there in 1821. After this Prussia exerted much more influence over the surrounding German states, eventually bringing them all together, after wars with France and Austria, into the "Germany Empire." So there's your history lesson for the day. It's a very quick overview, but it's very interesting as it relates to the build-up to the world wars.

We ate at a very nice restaurant in Leipzig just outside of St. Nicholas'- we had a plate full of different kinds of meat and wurst that we could pick and choose as we wanted. It was all very delicious.

From there we took the train to Dresden, where we stayed at Pastor Andreas Rehr's guest apartment near the parsonage. We didn't spend much time with them in the evening, but we had a wonderful breakfast with him and his wife, and Pastor even showed up around his church, which is the largest church building in the SELK (on permanent loan from the State Church of Germany). I've taken some pictures of this church before, but you can see it again here.

We left our bags there, planning to pick them up later, and walked through Dresden. Our first and primary stop was the Frauenkirche, and it certainly didn't disappoint. This time we were able to actually go inside- if you remember, the last time I was in Dresden there was a concert, so it was closed to tourists. Unfortunately a woman pastor gave a message while we were there, and I wasn't too pleased with what I understood.

And here's the porcelain "Procession of Princes"

It was bitterly cold while we were there, though- the wind whipped up from the river and chilled us to the bone. We were glad to go inside when we could. This was probably the coldest day of our trip.

Here you can see the Dresden Opera; we didn't go inside.

The Catholic "Hofkirche," or "Palace Church"

After sightseeing in Dresden we met up again at the Rehr's, got our luggage, said good-bye, and found the train that we needed to be on. It was a "Euro-city" train, and it was packed. Luckily I had reserved seats, so we didn't need to find seats where there weren't any. We got into Berlin and took the various trains to Köpenik and the Müllers, where we stayed for a few nights. I'll pick up on that in the next blog post.

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