Prayer led to the collapse of the Berlin Wall

Dr Mac Brunson Pastor at First Baptist Church Jacksonville, Fl described the series of prayer meetings in a sermon in early 2014.

Disillusioned with the Berlin Wall, the physical fault line of the ongoing Cold War and the repressive East German regime, Pastor Führer began organising Prayers for Peace every Monday evening, beginning in 1982.

On many occasions fewer than a dozen people attended the prayer meetings. The East German government strongly discouraged its citizens from becoming involved in religious activities, but the meetings continued each Monday without fail.

In 1985 Pastor Führer put an “open to all” sign outside the church. Such a gesture was loaded with symbolism as the church provided the only space in East Germany where people could talk about things that could not be discussed in public.

“Ignoring death threats and huge banks of armed police, thousands gathered at St Nicholas Church in the East German city of Leipzig on 9 October 1989 to pray for peace. After an hour-long service at St Nicholas, Pastor Führer led worshippers outside.

The nearby Augustus platz was filled with demonstrators clutching lit candles. Slowly, the crowd began walking around the city, past the Stasi headquarters, chanting “we are the people” and “no violence”, and accompanied by thousands of helmeted riot police ready to intervene.

The tension was palpable.

But at the decisive moment the police stood aside and let the protesters march by.

St Nicholas Pastor Führer said: “They didn’t attack. They had nothing to attack for. East German officials would later say they were ready for anything, except for candles and prayer.”

Pastor Führer was adamant the Berlin Wall would not have collapsed without the events in Leipzig.

“Things were happening in Leipzig that weren’t happening anywhere else,” he said.

“The people who came to demonstrate on 9 October came from all over East Germany. Without Leipzig, the Berlin Wall would not have fallen, let alone the reunification of Germany.

“What moved me the most was that people who had grown up in two atheist dictatorships – first the Nazis then the communist regimes – were able to distil the message of Jesus into two words: no violence.

“Without the church it would have been like all other revolutions before – bloody and unsuccessful.”” See this link  for more information.