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Published: March 21st 2005
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This evening when I left the library I saw a beautiful sight, the moon was rising over Building A, The Castle, in a cloudless, unbelievably blue sky.
The snow is gone in our area and melting all over the Czech Republic. Unfortunately there is flooding in a number of areas as rivers are rising to flood stage. I hope there is not a repeat of three years ago when Prague was flooded, the subway closed and the city separated by the river. I wonder how many gallons of water were pumped out of the subway system. It must have been millions upon millions of gallons.
The German movie, produced last year, on Martin Luther was shown to the CAT students this evening. Everyone was invited. The film was shot entirely in Europe and I must say the settings and photography were simply magnificent. I do not know if this movie has been distributed in the States or not. I do not remember seeing any ads for it last year. Of course in a two hour movie not all the events leading up to Luther nailing his 95 thesis on the church door can be covered in depth. However I do believe they captured the essence of the times and the personalities of the major players in this historical event very well. The movie did make me realize that I have forgotten so much of European history in that era. I was stunned by the history. I absolutely never knew any of the things that happened historically around the two or three things I knew about Luther. I knew of his declaring his personal stances from reading scripture. I knew he translated the Bible into German. I knew he more or less founded a new part of the church. But I had no idea of the fierce hold Christendom had on politics in that era. The excesses of the Catholic church in those days sickened me. Then the horrid war in Germany and the loss of life was almost as bad. Shocking stuff the history of that era. But today no one would want to return to the way things were. Someone had to make this drastic step to bring Christianity back to the simple reading and understanding of the word of God in the Bible. Of course Luther wasn’t the first as we well know here in Prague. The Hussites had tried to make similar reforms here with the same resulting massacres. Religious intolerance has a long history all over the world. I took a class in European history in college. It is sad to realize how much we forget as time goes by.
I would like to know how much of the dialog in the movie is the actual words spoken by the various people involved. Is it like the movie on the US Cival War, "Gods and Generals" where much of the dialog is what the generals actually said? One statement in the movie that jumped out to me was spoken by a Cardinal of the Catholic church after the death of Pope Leo X. The Cardinal was talking about the pope’s response to Luther. He said, “What we needed in the pope was a moral giant who would reform the church. What was got was a moral midget.” Were these the actual words of a Cardinal? I would really like to know.
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