I visited an intriguing sanctuary recently: an early twelfth-century \u00a0Cistertian abbey church that now serves both as the Catholic and also the Protestant church of the little town of Altenberg, in Germany. \u00a0Obviously, the old Cistertian abbey church is stunning in and of itself, still marked by the reforming zeal for clarity and simplicity of its earliest worshiping community. \u00a0I visited while a Catholic Mass was celebrated but knew that within hours, a Protestant community would gather in the same space to celebrate its own service, to be followed by another Catholic Mass. \u00a0I wondered what the early Cistertian monks would make of their now “bi”-ritual sanctuary. \u00a0It struck me that the early Cistercians share some liturgical preferences with later Protestant worshippers, not least in their architecture (it would be much harder to see a Baroque Catholic sanctuary as a naturally welcoming space for a Protestant congregation). \u00a0Which leads me to wonder: where are the places where our traditions lean toward being “bi” quite naturally?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I visited an intriguing sanctuary recently: an early twelfth-century Cistertian abbey church that now serves both as the Catholic and also the Protestant church of the little town of Altenberg, in Germany. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ecumenism"],"yoast_head":"\n