Burgenland Protestants mark Reformation Day across 29 parishes

About 30,000 Protestants live in Burgenland, where congregations marked Reformation Day on Saturday, ORF reported. The day is one of the most important holidays for Protestants and commemorates Martin Luther’s 95 theses.

Young people joined the service at the Protestant parish in Stoob, though attendance by teenagers is more common on holidays, the report said. “Sunday at 9 a.m. is certainly not an ideal time to draw a young person to church,” pastor Irmgard Langer said.

Langer said the church also offered young people an important message: “You are good, just as you are.” She said changes in the Protestant church were reflected in her own role: when she was born, it was not yet taken for granted that women could serve as pastors. She is now on equal terms with her husband, who is also a Protestant pastor.

Services across Burgenland’s 29 Protestant parishes recalled the Reformation, which began about 500 years ago. Luther is said to have nailed his 95 theses to the church in Wittenberg, Germany, in 1517.