Role of faith, prayer in falling of Berlin Wall underscored

BERLIN/GENEVA (RNS/ENI) Ecumenical leaders said that prayer and a commitment to peaceful change helped open the Berlin Wall 20 years ago without bloodshed. Archdeacon Colin Williams, general secretary of the Conference of European Churches, on Monday (Nov. 9) underscored the role played by Christians and churches in 1989, with “patient, determined, brave prayer” for peace, […]

BERLIN/GENEVA (RNS/ENI) Ecumenical leaders said that prayer and a commitment to peaceful change helped open the Berlin Wall 20 years ago without bloodshed.

Archdeacon Colin Williams, general secretary of the Conference of European Churches, on Monday (Nov. 9) underscored the role played by Christians and churches in 1989, with “patient, determined, brave prayer” for peace, justice and the integrity of creation.

“The scenes of joy which followed the opening of the Berlin Wall expressed a joy which was felt across Europe as walls, which had separated individuals from individuals, families from families, nations from nations, began to break open,” said Williams.


The first freely elected government in East Germany donated two sections of the Berlin Wall to CEC in recognition of its role in Eastern Europe, Williams noted in a letter to Bishop Margot Kaessmann, who heads the Evangelical Church in Germany, the main grouping of Protestant churches in the country.

Staff members from CEC, the World Council of Churches and other organizations at the Ecumenical Center in Geneva gathered at those sections of the Berlin Wall on Monday to remember and give thanks for the “breaking down of barriers in Europe as a whole.”

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