, First Lutheran Church, Pine River, MN
I’ve just come back from a pilgrimage of sorts. I spent a week in June in Wittenberg, Germany, the place where Martin Luther spent his life from 1508.
On this journey, I was able to walk the streets that Luther walked, walk the corridors of his former monastery that would become his home, and worship in both the church that was his church (the Stadtkirche Sankt Marien) and the church where he is buried and which is perhaps most famous for being the site where he nailed the 95 Theses in 1517 – the Schlosskirche.
Excursions from the home base of Wittenberg took me to Eisleben: to the houses where Luther was born and died (but only lived a few months in his whole life) and a church in which he preached his last sermon – St. Andreas Church (notably the only one that still has furnishings as it did in the 16th century) – and where he was baptized – St. Peter and Paul Church.
Excursions took me to Erfurt: Luther first went here as a student (1501) and the monastery where he took his vows as an Augustinian monk (1505) and the cathedral where he was ordained a priest (1507). Excursions took me to the Wartburg Castle, where Luther lived in hiding during 1521-22; it is here that one of Luther’s monumental works, translating the New Testament – from the Greek “original” – into German was completed.
Click here to read Pastor Burkman’s complete blog online from Pine River Echo Journal.