|PIC1|Church leaders have paid tribute to the faith and courage of ordinary men and women who helped unify Germany and end the Cold War on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall today.

The newly elected head of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), Bishop Margot Kaessmann, said dream became reality when the wall came down on 9 November 1989.

“Brave women and men from the civil rights movement in the former German Democratic Republic laid the foundation for this day by opposing the regime and inspired many more people to do the same through their example,” she said.

Bishop Kaessmann said she was grateful for the decisive role played by the EKD in the GDR at this time.

“The prayers for peace in overflowing churches will remain in the consciousness as a symbol of a movement that truly earned the name ‘peaceful revolution’.”

She said that remembering the historic event could help bring Europe closer together.

“These events can give us courage for the continuing journey to Europe’s future,” she said. “In spite of all the suffering that dominates our world, the 9 November 1989 and the weeks of peaceful mass demonstrations in the preceding autumn will always come to me as a miracle.”

Preaching at an ecumenical service in the Gethsemane Church in Berlin today, the head of the German Bishops’ Conference Archbishop Robert Zollitsch called on “East and West to keep building bridges towards one another in patience and perseverance”.

The fall of the wall, he continued, demanded that the German people show solidarity with those still living in bondage and contribute to a Europe “that truly serves the relationship between people and states”.

“The memory of 9 November 1989 and no less the memory of the terrible events of the Night of Broken Glass on 9 November (1938, against the Jews), teach us unequivocally: walls – whether real or in people’s heads – do not solve any problems. On the contrary, they create problems. They obstruct the future.”

The head of the World Council of Churches, the Rev Dr Samuel Kobia, said the church in the former German Democratic Republic had offered an inclusive space to people searching for freedom and a spiritual home.

“Christian hope and perseverance contributed significantly to the fall of the Berlin Wall twenty years ago,” he said.

“A movement that started with prayers and candlelight vigils in the Saint Nicholas Church in the centre of Leipzig spread all over East Germany and inspired and encouraged people to confront the power of police and secret service in a very effective and peaceful way.”

Dr Kobia said there were still many walls separating mankind today, like the demilitarised zone between North and South Korea, the security wall in Palestine, as well as “the walls of injustice, racism and prejudice that separate rich and poor, stigmatise persons suffering from HIV and Aids and destroy the lives of many people”.

“When we celebrate today twenty years of the fall of the Berlin Wall, which marked the end of the cold war era, let us remember the faith and the courage of all those people who gathered in the churches and became the nucleus for the movement of change,” he said.

“They taught us that Christian faith can inspire a resistance movement against fatalism and despair - a lesson which is as important today as it was twenty years ago.”