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Ambassadors visit Luther Memorials in Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt as part of the Luther Decade
Together with Minister-Presidents Christine Lieberknecht and Dr Reiner Haseloff, Minister of State Cornelia Pieper has invited Ambassadors from countries with a Protestant tradition to travel to Luther Memorials in Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt. The trip starts with a visit to the Wartburg and an overnight stay at the Erfurt Augustinian monastery on 8 December and will end with a guided tour of Wittenberg on 9 December.
Minister of State Cornelia Pieper emphasized the growing international dimension of the Luther Decade:
“This trip and the many projects carried out under the auspices of the Luther Decade are intended to raise public awareness of the preparations for the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in 2017, both at home and abroad. The Federal Foreign Office is lending support to the Luther Decade in the foreign policy sphere.
Within the framework of our cultural relations policy, the anniversary of the Reformation will enable us Germans to revisit, together with major partner countries in Europe, the shared cultural history of our continent.”
2017 will see the 500th anniversary of the posting of the theses by Martin Luther. In the meantime, the Luther Decade 2008‑2017 pools all events leading up to the jubilee.
The stakeholders – the Protestant Church in Germany, the Länder and the Federal Government – are trying to publicize abroad the preparations and activities in the runup to the anniversary. The Federal Foreign Office, which has been represented on the board of trustees of the Luther Decade since September 2010 is responsible for the foreign policy aspect of that public relations campaign.