German Bishop Backs Proposal for ‘Ecumenical Congregations’, by Martina Moyski

By Martina Moyski, Church Militant, January 6, 2020 

Move toward Catholics and Protestants under one roof

HANOVER, Germany (ChurchMilitant.com) – A German Catholic bishop has endorsed the proposal of his Protestant counterpart for Catholics and Protestants to worship under one roof. 

Bishop Heiner Wilmer of Hildesheim, known as an advocate for “a new way of thinking in the Church,” has welcomed the prospect of combined Catholic and Protestant parishes in the future.

“I firmly believe that there is much more connecting than separating between the two major German churches,” Wilmer said in reponse to the moves of Hanover Protestant bishop Ralf Meister to blur distinctions between the two faiths.

“As Christians, we are all called to testify and preach the gospel,” said Wilmer. “How we can go together in pastoral care is a right and important question for the future. We will certainly deal with that in ecumenism.”

The Evangelical-Lutheran Hanoverian bishop Meister considers parishes with Protestant and Catholic Christians under one roof to be possible in the future. “Many people no longer ask whether someone is Protestant or Catholic, but only whether they are Christian,” he said in an interview with the Evangelical Press Service.

Meister said he has been thinking “creatively” about the form such ecumenical churches would take. For example, he is imagining congregations that can only be found “for a limited period of time, possibly without a pastor and church building, only with a volunteer-appointed predicant.” ….

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