Vine planting with the Luther Church congregation

Last year, a small vineyard was planted at the historic town hall as part of a joint planting programme with Bishop Timmerevers. The counterpart to this was planted at the Roman Catholic parish of Christus König Radebeul. The vines are intended to symbolise the good cooperation between the parish and the city administration. Another planting will now take place on Sunday 28 June, this time with the Lutheran parish.

The idea was born when Lord Mayor Bert Wendsche was asked to give a greeting for the cities and municipalities at the celebration of the new foundation of the Roman Catholic parish of St. Benno in Meissen on 17 June 2018 - as a kind of ambassador for the secular administration.

With the re-establishment of the parish of St Benno, a "new house was built". Seven parishes decided to live under a common, new roof in future, to live and be close to each other. This brings with it a wide range of challenges. The biggest, however, is probably to provide warmth in the new house, to fill it with life and to ensure that everyone feels seen and included. - A task that we local politicians also often find difficult. "Just think of the many problems associated with district or municipal mergers", says Bert Wendsche. "Both church communities and secular communities have to cope with similar processes due to demographic developments. A new, larger house can be built quickly, but it is important that there is still warmth in every room afterwards. To use a biblical motif, it is important that the vine, every vine, continues to bear fruit in the future." And so the Lord Mayor of Radebeul felt a great need to help kindle the necessary "new warmth" in the new building and to express our solidarity.

At the celebration of the new foundation, he therefore suggested that words should be followed by deeds and that this solidarity should be made visible to everyone. This suggestion was taken up and last year the town of Radebeul and the Radebeul Catholic parish of Christus König planted vines in front of the town hall and church. Now the Protestant Lutheran parish is joining this campaign.

The parishes and the town council want to send out a signal in favour of greater social cohesion, humanity and pluralism in society.

The vine planting at the Lutherkirche, Kirchplatz 1, will take place on 28 June 2020 and will begin at 11.00 a.m. after the church service.