So, does Katharina von Bora sound familiar? No, eh?
Well, how about this guy? He's Katharina's husband...oh yeah, his name is Martin Luther. ;) I thought I'd mix that up a bit - Katharina sounds like she was a great lady...
This is St. Mary's parish church where Luther taught in Wittenberg.
On the corner of the church is a statue of the 'Judensau' (which apparently was popular and put on other churches) or 'Jewish pig', yeah, I know. It has the name of God from a Kabbalist text and shows Jews suckling a pig. Hmm....yeah....and apparently Luther wasn't against having this up there...in fact, he was VERY anti-Jewish - he was disappointed that they hadn't rapidly converted to Christianity.
This is the 'Castle Church' where Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the church door...
Around the tower in VERY LARGE LETTERS it says 'A Mighty Fortress is our God' - love that hymn!
And ye famous door...way. The actual door was destroyed years ago, but that is the doorway where 'the party started' as an American student said inside the church.
The inside of the Castle Church where Martin Luther and his fellow Reformer, Philipp Melanchton are buried. (I had never heard much about Melanchton, but he was apparently brilliant!)
Melanchton's grave marker...
Martin Luther's grave marker...
Wittenberg town square. The two-spired church in the background is St. Mary's where Luther preached....
This was an old monastery that the Elector of Saxony gave Martin Luther and Katharina as a home - they often had 40+ to dinner at night and had six children and raised four orphans.
Today their home is a museum...
Even though many other things were 'at work' with the Reformation, this is partly to blame: this is an indulgence payment box. The people paid their money for an 'indulgence' (piece of paper largely saying 'time served' for sins and no need to go to Purgatory/Hell/etc.) - Luther grew concerned with the practice as a whole, but especially when he started noticing people stopped coming to confession - 'no need', right? ;)
This is Luther's pulpit that he preached from....
Obviously not the original (but from Luther's time) but a copy of the Papal Bull against him...
This is 'the Community Chest'. Luther tried to put in motion several 'reforms', in education, banking, etc. This was a kind of 'common money pot' which paid for the pastors' salaries and cared for the poor....
Over the years Luther's house had many visitors and here is the signature of one of them - how's your Russian? That's pi for 'P' and ETR. Yes, it's true, Peter the Great was in Wittenberg years after Luther's death and visited his house. Graffiti hoodlum! ;)
So we said 'toodles' to Wittenberg and Katharina von Bora and enjoyed the countryside on our way back to Berlin.
Here are the 'Spargel' fields - it's a white Asparagus that the Germans just go nuts over! I mean, it's fine, but....let's just say they REALLY like it...
Germany is SO beautiful!! This is the country road back to Berlin...
