Theme Week Lithuania – Kėdainiai

25 June 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  8 minutes

City Hall and Monument of Radziwiłł © Algirdas/cc-by-sa-3.0

City Hall and Monument of Radziwiłł © Algirdas/cc-by-sa-3.0

Kėdainiai is one of the oldest cities in Lithuania. It is located 51 km (32 mi) north of Kaunas on the banks of the Nevėžis River. First mentioned in the 1372 Livonian Chronicle of Hermann de Wartberge, its population as of 2020 is 23,667. Its old town dates to the 17th century. The city is the administrative centre of the Kėdainiai District Municipality. The geographical centre of the Lithuanian Republic is in the nearby village of Ruoščiai, located in the eldership of Dotnuva.   read more…

Portrait: The Reformer Martin Luther

25 October 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: Portrait Reading Time:  36 minutes

Martin Luther (1529) by Lucas Cranach the Elder

Martin Luther (1529) by Lucas Cranach the Elder

Martin Luther (10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546), O.S.A., was a German professor of theology, composer, priest, monk and a seminal figure in the Protestant Reformation. Luther came to reject several teachings and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. He strongly disputed the Catholic view on indulgences as he understood it to be, that freedom from God’s punishment for sin could be purchased with money. Luther proposed an academic discussion of the practice and efficacy of indulgences in his Ninety-five Theses of 1517. His refusal to renounce all of his writings at the demand of Pope Leo X in 1520 and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms in 1521 resulted in his excommunication by the Pope and condemnation as an outlaw by the Emperor.   read more…

Town and Parish Church of St. Mary’s of Lutherstadt Wittenberg

1 August 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, House of the Month, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  13 minutes

Stadtkirche Wittenberg © M_H.DE/cc-by-sa-4.0

Stadtkirche Wittenberg © M_H.DE/cc-by-sa-4.0

The Stadt- und Pfarrkirche St. Marien zu Wittenberg (Town and Parish Church of St. Mary’s) is the civic church of the German town of Lutherstadt Wittenberg. The reformers Martin Luther and Johannes Bugenhagen preached there and the building also saw the first celebration of the mass in German rather than Latin and the first ever distribution of the bread and wine to the congregation – it is thus considered the mother-church of the Protestant Reformation. Since 1996 it has been a World Heritage Site – it, the Castle Church of All Saints (Schlosskirche), the Lutherhaus, the Melanchthonhaus and the surrounding Dessau-Wörlitz Garden Realm form the world’s densest concentration of World Heritage Sites in one area.   read more…

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