Queen gifts home-made altar hanging to famed Lutheran church

Queen gifts home-made altar hanging to famed Lutheran church | iNFOnews.ca
Denmark's Queen Margrethe II, third left, smiles besides German President Joachim Gauck, third right, and his wife Daniela Schad, left, Bishop Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, second left, chair of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), Reiner Haseloff, second right, governor of the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, and his wife Gabriele, right, prior to the service in front of the Castle Church entrance in Wittenberg, Germany, Sunday, Oct. 2, 2016. Together with Gauck, Margrethe II will open the Castle Church after several years of restoration. The queen is in Germany for a one-day visit. (AP Photo/Jens Meyer)

BERLIN – The Queen of Denmark has donated an altar hanging she embroidered to the German church considered a starting point for Martin Luther’s Reformation movement almost 500 years ago.

Luther is said to have nailed his “95 Theses” which challenged the Catholic Church’s practice of selling indulgences, to the door of Wittenberg’s All Saints’ Church in 1517.

Queen Margrethe II attended a service there Sunday together with German President Joachim Gauck, a former Lutheran pastor. The Wittenberg church is also known as Castle Church.

The 76-year-old queen said she designed and stitched the red altar hanging herself. It features a white rose, the symbol of Lutheranism.

Margrethe heads the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark.

Germany is hosting a series of celebrations marking the 500th anniversary of the Reformation next year.

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