For 44 years after World War II, the Communist authorities of East Germany forbade the rebuilding of Dresden’s Church of our Lady, destroyed by Allied bombers. In 1989, though, the boot was lifted from that country, and the people and the Church in Dresden knew what they wanted to accomplish: a restored Frauenkirche.
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That article says that “some historians argue [that Dresden] was of no military significance” during World War II, but that isn’t the case.
Frederick Taylor wrote a history of the Dresden bombing that was released last year, and refuted that idea — Dresden had rail and industrial assets that the German goverment was using to make war. One could certainly argue (and I would agree) that the attack was disproportionate, but destroying military-industrial targets is a legitimate tactic.
As for the Frauenkirche itself, this will sound harsh, but Germans haven’t been creating many little Germans for a third of a century, and they haven’t been filling many churches. If they don’t care about Germany’s continued existence, why should anybody else?
I had thought the church was a Catholic church but the article seems to imply it’s Lutheran. Was it originally a Catholic church when it was built?
Come to check it out, the bishop’s name doesn’t match! Well, congratulations to the Lutherans anyway!
Luther himself saw no problem with calling Mary the Mother of God, and my former Lutheran pastor told me that a plurality of German Lutheran cathedrals are named after the Virgin.