The Next Twelve Months

The Evangelical Church has stood like a massive roadblock before the Soviets' march to communize East Germany and its predominantly Protestant 17,600,000 people. But the Reds have confronted Christian roadblocks before, and have developed their techniques and technicians for chopping them down to size. Last week they were waging a "fight superstition" campaign to undermine the church's standing with young Germans. And from another flank aged (73) Chairman Otto Nuschke of the Reds' satellite German Christian Democratic Union Party pressed the church to take a loyalty oath to the state.

After ten years of such dogged chopping, the church Martin Luther founded is in sore trouble in East Germany, and its future is in serious jeopardy. "As matters stand now," said a topflight Protestant prelate in West Germany last week, "I cannot see further than twelve months. They will be very critical." Added TIME Correspondent Denis Fodor from West Berlin: "The Protestant church in East Germany has begun to fight its last-ditch battle. It is a battle of attrition and infiltration, which is creating less attention than it deserves largely because it is cloaked in the gobbledygook of Marxist dialectic on the one hand, the neutral diplomatic language of the church on the other."

Systematic Harassment. By now the East zone government has made it all but impossible for the Evangelical Church's leader, Bishop Otto Dibelius, 75, to administer his church from his bishopric in West Berlin. No pastors are permitted to enter the zone from West Germany; it is difficult enough to move a pastor from one parish to another within the East zone. Church revenue, cut 30% in 1953, was cut an additional 4% at the end of 1955. The only solicitation for contributions allowed is the collection during services. And money can be sent from the West zone only at the official exchange rate, which reduces each mark's value by 30%.

East zone pastors now get far less than do workers--an average $31 a month--with new cuts in the offing. Religious education is still permitted, but hours for it are set so that children have to give up their free time and pay extra in transportation. Church attendance is systematically harassed by well-synchronized rallies, workers' meetings, free concerts. Communist notaries tour the factories to collect workers' formal affidavits that they have left the church.

Pastors' children are barred from university study, and higher education is virtually impossible for children who have not participated in the new ritual of Youth Dedication (TIME, Dec. 27, 1954), the state's secularist substitute for Confirmation. So far this year 1,600 teachers loyal to the church have fled East Germany to avoid putting pressure on their pupils to attend Youth Dedications. Thirty-four Evangelical Church workers are currently in jail, and in January 110 of the church's 121 railroad missions in East Germany were ordered closed.

Responsibility & Duties. Evangelical leaders in the West fear a breaking point. Said one of them last week: "Whenever the situation becomes unbearable, and the pastors come to us and say 'I can remain no longer,' or 'My wife cannot bear it any more,' we try to dissuade them from leaving. We tell them that though they lead martyrs' lives it is best for them to remain. So far, that has been enough. But the day may come when they feel that they cannot fulfill their calling any longer. Neither Christ nor the church can ask of a man more than he feels, in good conscience, he is able to do--then the church will allow them to go. A flood of pastors will leave for the West, and those who remain behind will suffice to keep a church of Russian proportions."

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