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| An industrious scene by St Martin-in-the-Fields last night as the Martin Luther Gate arrives in London |
Yeah, it’s a gate. Or a portal if you prefer.
It’s a gate that’s on the move. A moving target. It started in Genoa in
Italy in November. It’ll finish its travels in Berlin in May. Earlier this week
it was in Cambridge and Liverpool. From here, London, it heads off to Vyborg in
Denmark. And it’ll just keep on truckin’ until it crosses the finish line in
Berlin next May.
Only gonna be here, in London, for one day (today, 25th February 2017). So, a pop-up gate. You wanna
see it — pass through it – sit down there for a minute – it’s in that little
plaza there on the north side of St. Martin-in-the-Fields (on the northeast
corner of Trafalgar Square). It’s linked with an exhibition – a one day
exhibition – in the southwest corner of Trafalgar Square. The exhibition’s
“venue” is a truck (that’ll be parked there in Trafalgar Square).
It’s all part of the World Reformation Exhibition “Gates of Freedom.”
It’s about European reformation in 2017 – well, European reformation
ideas as advanced by churches, groups and civic organisations.
2017 because this year is the 500th anniversary of the capital
R Reformation, of Martin Luther nailing his “95 theses” to the gates of Castle
Church in Wittenberg.
If you’re brutally honest the whole world-changing – or at least
European-changing – episode would be, were you to draw it, an adult
search-and-find story. With filthy lucre being the hidden object in each panel.
There’s the Dominican monk Johann Tetzel – Tetzel the Pretzel – selling
indulgences in and around Wittenberg. Tetzel could sell. He told people that what
he was flogging could redeem the sins of the kaput. He had a line of patter
that would have done a Petticoat Lane cockney barker proud: "Once the coin into the coffer
clings, a soul from purgatory heavenward springs!"
And
of course the bind was that Martin Luther, the priest of Castle Church, was getting
fewer volk going into confession in his church. Which meant fewer shekels in
the offering box.
Spot
those shiny gold things in the search-and-find story?
One
thing led to another led to a hammering on a gate – well, a church door, in
Wittenberg in 1517.
And
it’s 500 years later and we’ve got a gate – just for 24 hours – beside a church
door in central London.
A
gate, our temporary gate I mean – a portal – because a gate and the nailing
thereon was the trigger point for the Reformation. But a gate also symbolises,
if you will, our passage through time. Through the portal we can think about
the 500th anniversary – the 500th anniversary! Pretty
damn remarkable when you think about it – of the Reformation.
Anyway,
you want to read more, maybe take a look at the R2017.org website.
But,
yeah, that’s what that (ever so temporary) wooden gate or portal in St.
Martin-in-the-Fields Church Path is all about.
Now
ya know.
P.S.
my personal favourite fragment of the whole thing is the legend in the corner
of the banner hanging from the cross beam of the portal: “Do not obey anybody”
[attributed to Martin Luther]. He
was pumping that kind of stuff out in 1517 no wonder the authorities regarded
him as poison. I’d have a pint with him. Buy him a dunkel or two and get him
givin’ ‘em hell. Praise the Lord,
damn the Pretzel and pass the dunkel.
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