BERLIN - German Christians ended their first-ever ecumenical congress with an open-air service outside the Berlin Reichstag on Sunday, and officials predicted a follow-up event in five years.
With Catholics and Protestants still split over the rite of communion, the crowd of 205,000 instead celebrated baptism, a sacrament the churches mostly recognize wherever it is performed.
Participants re-enacted their baptism by sprinkling water on one another's foreheads in the summer sunshine.
Manfred Kock, chairman of the German council of 24 Lutheran and Reformed churches, called in a sermon for the new European Union constitution to mention God. Senior politicians drafting the document had earlier expunged references to God to avoid controversy.
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Dr. Steven J. Lawson | 6/23/2017
