Yesterday English-speaking Christians in Leipzig were celebrating the 25th anniversary of their church. Martin Reakes-Williams had arrived in Leipzig in 1995 without a congregation, a church building and with little more than a suitcase. Looking for God-given leads, he began building a congregation of faithful people.
Not all were ex-pats, as tends to happen in Anglican chaplaincies in capital cities. To start with there were largely students and refugees. Nowadays there are many bi-national families (Germans married to many different nationalities) and their many children, as well as academics and students from all continents. Something like 10 per cent were born Anglicans. They initially met for worship in premises rented from the Andreas (Lutheran) church and they are still indebted to Lutheran hospitality for their present accommodation.
Christian Germany is different from Christian England in one or two salient points. Members of the Protestant and Roman Catholic Churches pay eight and a half per cent on top of their income-tax, collected through the state tax system. Opting out is possible but to opt out means denying oneself all the benefits of church membership and becoming a non-person in the eyes of the Church. Martin finds an Evangelical Anglican flavour congenial for developing a congregation that is devoted to the Gospel rather than to an institution.
Leipzig is Germany’s Birmingham just as Dresden is Germany’s London, with some allowance made for the regional framework of the German state. Leipzig has always been a trade centre, with a population of half a million and Porsche and BMW factories in the frame. The international atmosphere of the city endured through the days of the GDR and is still evident today.
The fact that Martin had read modern languages at Cambridge made him – like Giles Williams in Cannes – predisposed to think in terms of opportunities outside the UK. He is settled in Germany and, at the age of 57, minded to consider retirement in Germany. Born in Uganda and unmarried, he is free to do as Abraham did, to go out not knowing where he was going. This has been the way his faith has led him and still does. A curious twist in the story has brought him to a property in Shakespeare Strasse – what better dwelling-place could a pastor of an English-speaking church in Leipzig ask for?
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