A New Testament by Martin Luther on display at the German Historical Museum in Berlin. (source: AP/TASR)
For the people of today, the Reformationstill has relevance in that encourages us in the fight for the spiritual things of the world, said Miloš Klátik, general bishop of the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Slovakia.
“We want to learn from Luther’s experiences,” Klátik added during a mass at the Evangelical Church of the Holy Trinity in Bratislava’s Petržalka district, as quoted by the SITA newswire. “The right understanding of the Word of God changed his life and is now changing this world.”
The Reformation is one of the important events of history as it has contributed much to both the Church and society.
The Slovak Evangelical bishops are fully aware that this is most of all God’s work, reads the pastoral letter proclaimed in all Evangelical churches on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation’s beginning.
“Our Lord acted at a convenient time through the lives of Martin Luther, Filip Melanchton and Leonard Stöckel, and many of Luther’s collaborators and supporters of the Reformation ideas, high or low-class, ordained and non-ordained, and whole generations of our ancestors,” the bishops wrote, as quoted by TASR.
They stressed that people must remember them and use what they achieved and left for us.
Reformation still has relevance
We must also thank God for the people who brought the current Evangelic believers to the faith.
“Let us beg God to be and become the followers of the Reformation ideas, the heralds of the Word of God, to be and become the heralds of God’s love and mercy by our words and our way of life,” the bishops added, as quoted by TASR.
They also stressed that the anniversary of the Reformation has always highlighted the importance to repent, pray, read, learn and think more about the Bible.
On October 31, evangelical Christians worldwide commemorate the day when theologian Martin Luther hung the 95 theses which openly opposed the papal teachings on indulgences, on the door of the castle church in the German city of Wittenberg in 1517, TASR wrote.
