Days of encounter in the European capital of culture Chemnitz 2025
Daniela Frank (original in English)
The community of the dioceses of Dresden-Meißen and Görlitz in Saxonia, Eastern part of Germany, had invited CLCers and others interested to discover the new and the unseen – in the encounter with God, with each other and the city of Chemnitz, formerly down as “Karl-Marx-Stadt”. Thus, around 120 people from various parts of Germany, from Austria, Estonia, France, Luxemburg and Sweden met in May 28 in the local parish and spent the following three days together.
Many of the participants haven’t been before in the Eastern part of Germany, the former German Democratic Republic. How did people live in a system of socialist dictatorship? How about CLC – a small group in the tiny minority of Catholics? Currently, Chemnitz has about 250.000 inhabitants, of whom only 6.000 are members of the Catholic Church.
We spent the days in workshops, getting to know one another and sharing own experiences. We discovered the city and especially various projects of the “Culture Church”, an initiative of the various Christian Churches in the city, contributing to the capital of culture and its motto “C the unseen”. And of course, we prayed together and celebrated Eucharist with the local parish… and enjoyed the wonderful hospitality of our local CLC members.
After the final mass on 1 June, we said bye-bye to one another – with deep gratitude for these days together, happy about another experience of our international community which lives unity in diversity – and many of us with plans to come back to discover more in this thrilling city with such a manifold history.
