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Anniversaries are important milestones in the biographies of
individuals, nations, and also in church history. Their impact
on shaping identity is no recent discovery. On the contrary,
each era has had its own way of celebrating anniversaries and
exploiting them. The year 2017 marks the 500th anniversary
of Martin Luther's nailing his 95 theses to the door of a church
in Wittenberg, traditionally seen as the launch of the Refor-
mation. Although there is a long-standing controversy about
whether Luther indeed nailed his Ninety-Five Theses on the
sacrament of penance to the door of the castle church of Wit-
tenberg, the "blows of the hammer" of October 31, 1517, are
deeply engraved in the collective cultural memory: with the
blows of his hammer a lone warrior, a hero of the faith, shook
the very foundations of the medieval Church. Blow by blow
he ushered in a new age, a new way of thinking, a new kind
of individual, a new Church – so runs the trite but enduring
interpretation of this event.
The Reformation, in comparison, was a lengthy process which
led to led to the formation of a large number of independent
religious denominations that distanced themselves from the
Roman Catholic Church. This theologically motivated revo-
lution had repercussions for all areas of social and cultural
life in the early modern period, and made religious-cultural
differentiation and pluralism one of Europe's hallmarks. From
a denominational perspective, the self-image of pluralist Pro-
testantism was always characterised by reflection on its own
history. The perception of the history of the origins of the Re-
On Reforming Remembrance
Every historical era has had its own way of celebrating and exploiting anniversaries. This is also true of the Reformation:
down the centuries the Luther anniversaries have often used the theologist's ideas to serve the interests of the times.
2017 marks the 500th anniversary of Luther nailing his 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg. Will it be possible to
take a "different" approach to commemorating the Reformation this time – and set a new trend for future anniversaries?
formation developed into amedium for theological, social and
Church policy disputes. Reformation anniversaries provided an
opportunity for self-promotion and polemics, but at the same
time were always attempts to update the religious doctrine
of the Reformation and situate it in a contemporary context.
Since 1617, the first “centennial anniversary”, which at the
same time marked the birth of Reformation Day, official
Reformation anniversaries have been a fixture on the calen-
dar of all Protestant denominations. Celebrations, writings,
church services and public relations work – including various
Lutheran devotional objects – turned the anniversaries into
ecclesiastical events celebrated by society as a whole. The
first anniversary that was celebrated nationwide took place
a year before the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War. It served
to enhance the political profile of the Protestant princes. The
model sermons handed down over the centuries point to
anti-Catholic stereotypes and opposition to the pluralisation
of the Protestant faith. Thomas Kaufmann, a Church historian
at the University of Göttingen, detects here the beginnings
of the"Lutheran focus" and aggressive anti-Catholic polemics
that later became further entrenched.
In the 18th century the importance of the anniversary cele-
brations for society at large was temporarily diminished as a
result of the denominational pluralism of the different ruling
dynasties. Internal Church disputes for instance between the
Pietist movement and confessional orthodoxy now domi-
nated the celebrations, which took on a more ecclesiastical
Die Autorin The author
Prof. Dr. Andrea Strübind ist Hochschullehrerin für Kirchengeschichte
und Historische Theologie. Sie studierte Evangelische Theologie,
Geschichte und Judaistik in Berlin und Jerusalem. 1990 promovierte
sie an der Kirchlichen Hochschule Berlin und habilitierte sich 1999
an der Universität Heidelberg. Dort übernahm sie eine Lehrtätigkeit
für Historische Theologie. Eine Gastprofessur führte sie 2004 an
die Universität Lüneburg. Nach ihrer Ernennung zur Professorin in
Heidelberg 2005 folgte sie dem Ruf nach Oldenburg.
Prof. Dr. Andrea Strübind teaches church history and historical
theology. She studied Protestant theology, history and Jewish
studies in Berlin and Jerusalem. She took her PhD at the Kirchliche
Hochschule Berlin in 1990 and went on to gain her habilitation in
1999 at Heidelberg University, where she then began lecturing in
historical theology. A visiting professorship took her to Lüneberg
University in 2004. Appointed as a professor in Heidelberg in 2005,
she subsequently accepted a chair at Oldenburg University.