Still Neutral

In East Germany the struggle between Communist officials and church leaders suddenly grew sharper and more menacing. For a few days last week it looked as if the Protestant churches might abandon their carefully maintained neutrality and throw in their lot with the West.

The new crisis began just before Easter, when Communist bosses called in all the mayors of the Soviet zone and told them that the churches were meddling in politics. The mayors were instructed to keep a sharp watch on all religious services.

On the Defensive. Stocky, 69-year-old Bishop Otto Dibelius, chairman of the Council of Evangelical Churches (EKID) in both the Western and Eastern zones of Germany, was as quick to react as he had been against the aggressions of the Nazis. He promptly called on Otto Grotewohl, Minister-President of the Eastern German government, and presented documented evidence of Communist oppression of clergymen, church welfare groups and devout laymen. Grotewohl dismissed Dibelius' evidence as "insufficient." Other Soviet officials suggested that clergymen who did not support the Communists' "national front" should be severely punished. Bishop Dibelius' next move was to write Grotewohl a letter pointing out that "Christianity stands on the defensive . . . The church wants no fight with the state, but it does not fear such a fight either."

At Sunday services last week, a statement issued by the Berlin and Brandenburg province of EKID was read from the pulpits of Protestant churches in Berlin and the Soviet zone. "Ceaselessly, the cries of our members come to the church leadership," the letter said. "They say, 'Help us! We are forced to say things that we in truth cannot say . . .'"

On the same day many Roman Catholic priests in the Soviet zone read a pastoral letter denouncing materialism as "Godless and irreligious . . . anti-Christian and anti-church to the roots."

For "Justice." The declarations of both churches raised a fresh storm of Communist anger. In this tense atmosphere, the Evangelical Synod of all Germany--both West and East--held its annual meeting in the Eastern sector of Berlin. Many expected that the Synod would widen the breach between Christian church and Communist state. But Dibelius, after denouncing the "increasingly worsened" conditions, insisted that the church was not attacking any special group, but only "defending itself against anti-Christian assault." It was thus clear that Protestant leaders hoped to maintain their tenuous attitude of "a plague on both your houses" in the East v. West conflict.

Dibelius told the meeting: "Our church is [not] willing to be used as a factor in the play of political forces. We are concerned with the soul of man and with that which makes him man. That is possible under the most divergent political patterns . . ." At the close of the meeting a resolution was adopted calling on both the Western and Eastern zone governments for "justice."

Next day Dibelius, the Eastern zone Evangelical bishops and several Catholic churchmen met with Grotewohl. From the meeting came a joint communique: "The representatives of the churches gave assurances that they were deeply concerned with the reconstruction of the life of the German people in peace and freedom. The representatives of the government gave assurances that the church in the German Democratic Republic could work unhindered on a constitutional basis."

In effect, nothing was changed: the Communists in Eastern Germany would go right on with their campaign of weakening the churches.

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