Day 50 - August 27th: Specials in Budapest

Today was a small milestone. I had my 50th travel day. By now, I have visited numerous Protestant communities in the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary for the past 6 days. The range extends from urban communities to small rural communities. More than half of my planned time is now over.

Today, a special museum awaits, operated by a Protestant church community. The Evangelical Lutheran Museum is located right next to the main church in Budapest. It presents the history of the Lutheran Church in Hungary and showcases various everyday objects of the clergy and the community, such as communion cups, historical Bibles, pastor's robes, and the famous Luther Rose is ever-present. The museum even owns a famous manuscript by Martin Luther. His testament, which he wrote shortly before his death.

After the interesting museum, I first visited the grand Catholic Cathedral. But only from the outside, as the line at the ticket counter was too long for me, so I moved on to the so-called Shoe Memorial on the Danube promenade, not far from the Parliament, which was erected in 2005. This memorial commemorates the pogrom against Hungarian Jews in 1944. Hundreds of Jews were forced to line up along the Danube by nationalist Hungarians, the Arrow Cross Party. There they were shot and then thrown into the river. A very moving moment.

After a break, I climbed up to the UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Fisherman's Bastion, and enjoyed the magnificent view of the Danube, the monumental Parliament, and the opposite side of the city. Then the visiting time was already over, because at 4 pm I had an appointment with Pastor Barbara Lötsch from the German-speaking Protestant community in Budapest. Every Sunday there is a German Protestant service in the church on the Castle Hill, not far from the Fisherman's Bastion. She reported that about 1/3 of her congregation consists of Germans who temporarily work in Budapest and feel connected to the Protestant community. Another third consists of German-Hungarians or mixed marriages, and the last third consists of Hungarians who have left the politically influenced Reformed Church for more political reasons since Orbán took power. We talked about the special work of the Protestant foreign congregation and its peculiarities.

After about 90 minutes, we had to say goodbye because Pastor Feri and his wife had invited me to dinner and we wanted to continue our conversation about church life and theological questions about Martin Luther and his historical role. After almost two hours, this very interesting conversation also came to an end with a delicious meal. Because at 9 pm, I wanted to be on the other side of the Danube. The few bridges in the center were closed, and the tram no longer ran because the largest fireworks display in Europe was supposed to take place on the Danube promenade that evening.

Tens of thousands of people crowded along the Danube promenade to watch the fireworks. Since I was already there, I also went, although I'm not a big fan of such fireworks. It was very interesting to see how the rockets ascended synchronously into the evening sky and made a loud 'sea of colors' explode. After 30 minutes, it was all over and I went back to my quarters in the community house.