Day 20, July 28th: Pure Protestant Hospitality in Gliwice

At 8 o'clock in the morning, I got on my bike because I wanted to be in Gliwice, about 45km away, by noon. I took gravel paths, lonely village roads, and forest trails to reach the outskirts of this historically significant city. Every German student learns something about Gliwice in history class, so I was curious to visit and meet the pastor of the Protestant community there to learn about their church life. Due to the nearby highway, I had to take a detour to reach the city center. After a long search, I finally found the tourist office because I needed a new map for orientation. The last few kilometers, I had to rely on Google Maps. After getting the new map (bike maps have always been free in the Czech Republic and Poland), I chose a cafe and started writing a new text. Unfortunately, my program crashed, so I had to rewrite everything and only arrived at the Protestant church in Gliwice around 3 p.m. The friendly lady at the parish office opened the door for me, brewed a cup of tea, and tried several times to reach the pastor who was somewhere in the city. Unfortunately, she couldn't reach him and instead brought the intern.

But the intern, Mikolaj, was actually a Protestant vicar at the community and had studied theology. He even spoke some German. He showed me the church and the community rooms. He explained that the community has about 450 members and that around 120 people attend the Sunday service. He presented the spacious and inviting community rooms, which provide a comfortable atmosphere for children and mothers during the main service. He also showcased the elaborate camera technology in the church, as since the pandemic, every church service is streamed live on the internet. They have an active and professional online presence, including a separate YouTube channel for children. The parish also includes another location nearby, so the church service in Gliwice is always at 11 a.m. He told me about their active youth work, summer camps organized by the community, and a Christian band event with youth-oriented worship music in the fall. Once again, I was amazed at how contemporary and modern the Protestant community in Gliwice is. I found it particularly remarkable how he mentioned that they have been gaining more Catholic converts to the Protestant faith through their YouTube channel. He also explained the special historical significance of the city and the Silesian-Pietist influence on the Protestant community. I felt that we had a good conversation and connected with each other.

Then he invited me for a walk through the city center if I was interested, and we could also have dinner together because he had no plans in the evening. His wife would also like to join us, and she can even speak some German because she has relatives in Germany. I gladly accepted the offer, and after half an hour, the three of us set off to the city center. On the way, he showed me the former Silesian Protestant church in the city center, which is now, of course, the Catholic Church of St. Barbara, and it sparked some mixed emotions in me. My question about how it is to live as a Protestant with an 80-90% Catholic majority in the country was not easy for him to answer. He said that it is important to have a firm denominational standpoint and to offer an attractive community work for all generations. Being Protestant must also be appealing. We had dinner at a traditional Silesian restaurant, and when I wanted to pay for the three of us, it was not possible because I was the guest. That put me in an awkward situation. Then we continued walking, and suddenly a friend of theirs drove by in his car. He also wants to convert to the Protestant faith, and we could go to the radio tower on the outskirts of the city, where the staged attack on the German transmitter took place in 1939. It was a place that naturally made me feel uneasy, but for many Poles, it is a popular sightseeing spot.

After that, we drove to Tarnowskie Gory, about 25km away. Mikolaj showed me the first newly-consecrated Protestant church after the Catholic Counter-Reformation. Today, it has about 100 members. It was already dark by then. The friend was also hungry, so we went to a pizzeria. I was very surprised by the hospitality shown towards me, a German who just rang the doorbell at the parsonage. Shortly before midnight, we returned to the community house in Gliwice, thanked God for the encounter and the evening together in prayer. We briefly discussed the next morning, and I had to say goodbye to Mikolaj's wife, as she had to get up early. It was a long day with an interesting afternoon and a pleasant evening, and I fell tired into bed under the roof of the community house.