World Cup Churches 19. Germany

Continuing a series of blogs heading round the 32 qualifying countries in the 2022 World Cup - I will pick out one church in each one.  I am not going to choose only churches that are to my liking.  This is an exploration not a recommendation! To see all in the series select the label 'World Cup Churches' below.

Germany has a remarkable World Cup record - and also a vast array of remarkable churches. I've visited a few and even spoken in one, but I've decided to go for a church that I have never visited.  Nevertheless, given the opportunity this is a church I would definitely go to see - Thomaskirche in Leipzig.

It may look like any other Germanic city church, but the story of this church is without equal.  It was a church where Martin Luther visited often and preached - this (with many counterparts in the German states) linked to the Reformation, the foundation of Protestantism which revolutionised Europe both ecclesiastically and politically.  It became, therefore, Lutheran - the Reformation in Saxony proclaimed in this church by Luther himself in 1539.

Forward about 175 years and a new cantor arrived.  His name?  Johann Sebastian Bach. Bach's influence on music was and is as profound as Luther's on religion and politics.  It is calculated that it would take decades to physically write down the works of Bach, yet he not only wrote the scores, he composed them.  Weekly a cantata for St Thomas's, larger works for feasts and festivals, other works for the three sister churches, and utterly amazing general music besides. Oh, and he had 20 children . . .

As if this church did not have enough in being at the heart of two great revolutions, Richard Wagner was baptised here, and both Mozart and Mendelssohn played the organ as visiting musicians. Sme churches have history, but this is on another level!

Edward Digby

Through a good fortune of survival, now aided by the National Trust, The George Inn in Southwark  still stands.  It is unique as a surviving galleried inn of a kind once common.

For me the most attractive feature of this inn is its part in the story of a young man called Edward Digby.  There were several Edward Digbys in succession in the family, and they were a noble family in the City of London over the River Thames, peers of the realm.  Southwark, outside the City, was associated with ne'er-do-wells of many kinds.  Unsurprisingly then, on the marshes beyond, lay a large debtors prison.  In the style of the eighteenth century debtors were committed there until their debts were paid.  Being there all but guaranteed ones debts would never be paid.

An uncle of the young Digby became concerned that, at holiday seasons, he discarded his City finery and dressed in a blue coat only, disappeared.  He had him followed.  His spies saw him head past Southwark and out to the debtor's prison.  They enquired at the gate as to what Mr Digby was doing.  The gatekeepers confessed to no idea as to the blue-coated man's identity but reported that he came each Christmas and Easter and other auspicious times and paid several inmates' debts.  The gatekeepers informed the investigators that though they might well not wish to enter the prison, the man the sought would always take those he set free to The George Inn in Southwark for a celebratory meal.  And that is where they found him.  

Edward Digby died aged 27 years.  At Communion on Sunday we thought of his story as we remembered the comparable in type but incomparable in scale story of One who left the glory of the City Above to share the place of debtors below to set them free so they could eat with him and he with them.