"Freiheitsraum Reformation", a co-operation project between the University of Oldenburg and partners from culture, science and society to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in 2017, will receive further funding in the coming year.
The Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, Minister of State Monika Grütters, has approved further funding for the north-west German project for 2016. The requested funding amounts to 90,000 euros. According to project manager Prof Dr Dagmar Freist from the University's Institute of History, the renewed funding shows "that the focus on a critical reflection of the Reformation and its socio-political impact up to the present day is a convincing approach to understanding an anniversary primarily as food for thought and making it fruitful".
The project aims to bring together people and institutions of different orientations in order to look at the overall event of the Reformation together and "rethink" it. Under the motto "Searching for traces in the region", parishes and institutions from Friesland and the Oldenburger Münsterland will also be taking part in 2016 alongside partners from East Friesland and Oldenburg.
The joint search for traces is intended to make the many facets of the Reformation movement visible locally: What material manifestations of the Reformation have been preserved in the north-west - how have church rooms, cemeteries, living rooms, hymnals, paintings, clothing or even legends and stories, songs and ways of thinking changed? What happened to objects or parts of buildings that were rejected by the Reformation, such as statues of saints, altars, painted furniture or reliquaries? What became of everyday objects with religious connotations, and what did the various changes mean for identities and the self-image of communities? By exploring these questions, the 2016 project "Freedom Space Reformation" aims to shed new light on an eventful age.
The starting point for the project, which was launched in 2012, is the Luther Decade proclaimed by the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD). In addition to the University of Oldenburg, the following partners are involved in "Freedom Space Reformation": the Oldenburgische Landschaft, the Federal Institute for Culture and History of the Germans in Eastern Europe (BKGE), the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Oldenburg, the Evangelical Reformed Church (Leer), the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover (East Frisian District), the East Frisian Landscape, the Johannes a Lasco Library Emden, the Oldenburg State Library, the Oldenburg State Museum of Nature and Man and the Oldenburg State Theatre.