Saturday, 31 August 2024
Kilian Dörr, parish priest at the Protestant parish church in Sibiu
Pastor Dörr, what does it do to you as the ‘host’ when you have the CPCE General Assembly as a guest in ‘your’ church?
For me, it’s pure joy. I am delighted that the old walls are being filled with essential life. And it does us good that, in addition to church services, exhibitions and concerts, such an important European event is now taking place in this church.
How do the citizens of Sibiu perceive this plenary assembly, do they even take notice of this meeting?
They are aware of it. The preliminary programme with the celebration of 30 years of women’s ordination has been extremely helpful here and has had a really good media impact. A small newspaper article about this anniversary made its way into many other media outlets and helped to ensure that people in the country not only learnt about the 30th anniversary, but also about the Assembly in this context. The fact that women are fighting for their rights and are successful in doing so is of interest to many people in this country, including orthodox and secular people.
How much sleep are you getting these days?
I get enough sleep. That’s also because I have an enormously good team here.
What does the General Assembly of the Evangelical Church AB in Romania ECR bring?
I can’t speak for the whole church, but I can speak for our congregation here. So we invented these folding tables in our church where the delegates work. Originally the CPCE wanted to dismantle all the benches and replace them with tables. But we had only recently completely renovated our benches, and that’s when we came up with the idea of the folding tables and we will be able to use these folding tables in the future.
We are proud and happy that the CPCE General Assembly is our guest. And we will also leave the name cards on the pews for our next Sunday services so that our worshippers know who from all over Europe has already sat in their place.
Based on CPCE practice, we would also like to try something new in the way we celebrate communion at tomorrow’s closing service and try using individual chalices. We have never tried this before.
