Four white candles are burning early Sunday evening in the chancel of Hamburg’s main church of St. Petri. They stand for those affected and victims of the ambush at Jehovah’s Witnesses a week and a half ago, for the emergency services, for the neighborhood around the crime scene and for peace. With a dignified, ecumenical event, the Christian churches in Hamburg commemorated the dead of the shooting among Jehovah’s Witnesses on Sunday.
“We want to set an example for peace, which we believe will triumph and that it will be stronger in the end,” said Hamburg’s Catholic Archbishop Stefan Hesse at the opening of the ecumenical commemoration. “The bleaker the prospects for peace may be, the more urgent and resolute must be our hopes and our confidence, our will for peace and also our actions.”
The main church of St. Petri was good on Sunday, but not fully occupied. The church usually has room for around 1,000 people, and the church has been prepared for around 400. Among the guests were numerous emergency chaplains, police officers and politicians from the Hanseatic city, including Hamburg Mayor Peter Tschentscher, Interior Senator Andy Grote (both SPD) and Hamburg’s Deputy Mayor Katharina Fegebank (Greens).
Hamburg’s evangelical bishop Kirsten Fehrs also found words of comfort. “An entire city is mourning,” she said at the beginning of her speech. After such a cruel act of violence, many would wonder where God had been. “For me, God was right there – present in you,” she told the police, fire brigade, rescue services and emergency pastoral forces who were present. “In you, the fellow human beings with the saving hands and saving words. Who risked life and limb with heart and devotion to prevent even worse.” According to information from the interior authorities, almost 1,000 men and women were active on the night of March 10th.
With the cross-faith commemoration event, the Hamburg churches wanted to give the mourning space and donate consolation and care. The organizers of the commemoration were the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Northern Germany, the Archdiocese of Hamburg and the Working Group of Christian Churches. The commemoration should not and cannot replace a funeral service for Jehovah’s Witnesses, the churches said.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses supported the commemoration and were happy about the solidarity, as they said in advance. But later they want to plan a funeral service according to their Christian beliefs. According to reports, none of them were present in the main church of St. Petri on Sunday.
Since this weekend, a book of condolences on the shooting in the community center of Jehovah’s Witnesses has also been available in Hamburg City Hall. On the first day, several people took the opportunity to express their condolences to the victims’ relatives by making entries. According to the city, this is possible for a week between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. The book will be handed over to those affected in due course.
In the act on Thursday evening more than a week ago, a 35-year-old German in the north of Hamburg killed seven people – including an unborn child – with shots from a semi-automatic pistol and then killed himself. Nine people were injured.
