Islamophobic attack overshadows jewish-christian peace prayer

The attac in Hanau, where nine person died this week, casted a shadow over the Jewish-Christian peace prayer on Friday in the Berlin Parochial Church. "We stand here to heal the wounds of the past," Rabbi Andreas Nachama, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the House of One, told the numerous people present. "Everyone knows what has happened in Hanau. Everyone knows that we are living in difficult times. Also then, in 1939, when the Tetragramm - the name of God in four Hebrew letters - was cut off, were difficult times." German history has shown that hate is not limited to one group, but in the end it spares no one. "We must all raise our voices."

The occasion for the Judeo-Christian ceremony was the installation of a gilded metal construction of the former tetragram above the portal of the Parochial Church. For almost 240 years, the Hebrew inscription left its mark on the portal of the church in Berlin's Klosterstraße. It had been removed in 1939 after a decision of the then parish church council. "Thoughts contemptuous of man and God were then spreading insidiously in our congregation," said Pastor Corinna Zisselsberger, House of One and congregation of St. Peter and St. Mary, to whose area the Parochial Church belongs.

Angesichts wachsenden Hasses und Gewalt, gleich ob auf Juden, Muslime will die Gemeinde mit der Zeremonie an diesem Freitag ein Zeichen der Versöhnung aussenden. Es solle darüber hinaus die Verbundenheit sowie tiefe Verwurzelung des christlichen Glaubens im Judentum auf besondere Weise sichtbar gemacht werden. „Wir tun dies auch im Angesicht des rassistisch motivierten Anschlags in Hanau wurde uns gezeigt, dass auch heute Menschenfeindlichkeit und Verblendung zu Gewalt und Mord führen kann“, sagte die Pfarrerin.