Leipzig and 2 Churches

We're on our Fall Break right now and we decided to visit some places in the former East Germany.  All of these old East German cities are recently restored and rebuilt after the reunification of Germany.  All the Germans pay a reunification tax of about 10% to help rebuild the former East Germany.  (We pay it too since we're paid in Euros and pay German taxes.)  Not much renewing went on during the communist years, but since then many old buildings have been restored to their former appearance, especially churches.  We're staying in Dresden and one of it's big churches stood in ruins for many years as a peace memorial until in 1998 it was restored and rededicated in 2005.  But more about that in the next post.

The two stories I took from Leipzig were about Bach and the German people.  I'm sure there are more stories, but these are the two I latched onto.  These two stories are represented by two different churches.  I don't know what sets each church apart from the other; what historical significance they have separate from each other, why there are two big churches in this relatively small city, or anything.  They're both Lutheran churches since this is also northern Germany where Martin Luther was the home boy.  (As opposed to Bavarian southern Germany which is still very Catholic.)  The first church, St. Thomas's, is where Bach was a Cantor for 27 years and where he composed a lot of his music. 

I don't know what a Cantor is but I do know from the museum that we went to that Bach's duties included playing the organ for all the regular and special services.  Sometimes he played his music, sometimes other people's music.  Sometimes, on special occasions, he played the organ for 3 hours!  He also had to spend one week per month supervising the boys school associated with the church.  This was a music school for boys where they were taught to play the organ and other instruments and singing, etc.  The museum was full of stories of Bach's pupils and the churches where they eventually got jobs playing the organ.  (One interesting tidbit I read in the museum is that Bach would often write his music so fast that he had to wait to turn the page to continue writing until the ink would dry.  So he would sketch the beginning notes for the next page on the bottom of his current page so he wouldn't forget.)

Another really interesting thing is that Bach's whole family for generations was musical.  In fact, all the men in his generation (so him, his brothers and his cousins) had the first name of Johann with different middle names.  So there were several Johann Bachs running around in Germany, many playing the organ for various churches.  He even named at least three of his sons Johann Bach, with different middle names:  Gottfried, Christoph and Christian.

For some reason, however, the citizens of Leipzig chose the other church, St. Nicholas's church, to stage their peaceful demonstrations in the fall of 1989. 

I read that every Monday night up to 70,000 citizens would gather at this church and chant "Wir sind das Volk" (We are the people).  That was a powerful image for me.  To think of so many people just saying "We are the people".  The fall of 1989 is when the Berlin wall came down.  Just last Sunday in church we heard from a member of the Stake Presidency who told us that he remembers very well where he was when the wall came down (in Taiwan visiting his wife's family).  He watched it on TV and thought it was not real, just something the Chinese TV had misunderstood.  It was a great moment for him and for all the German people.