Martin Luther

Leader of the Reformation, who preached three times at Halle's Marktkirche late in life

Martin Luther never settled in Halle, yet he climbed into the Marktkirche's pulpit three times, and after his death his coffin lay in the church overnight. The far end of the indulgence storm, the home of his close friend Jonas, the thawing Saale that blocked his path — this city is a quiet but consequential page in his story.

Manifesto and showdown

In October 1521, at the Wartburg, Luther wrote Against the Idol at Halle, aimed squarely at the veneration of relics that Cardinal Albrecht ran in Halle. Acting on the Saxon elector's orders, Spalatin suppressed the manifesto, so on 1 December Luther wrote directly to the cardinal himself: halt the “idolatry of Halle” within fourteen days, or the manifesto would be published. On 21 December, the cardinal replied with a chastened letter of concession.

The manifesto was never published in Luther's lifetime; the manuscript now rests in Oxford's Bodleian Library. But Halle's name was written into one of the Reformation's tensest chapters.

Three times in the pulpit

On 5 August 1545, Luther preached at the Marktkirche for the first time; he climbed the pulpit again on 6 January 1546. The last time, though, the river held him there: that January, on his way to Eisleben to mediate a dispute, he found the Saale swollen with thawing ice and blocking his path. Stranded in Halle, he stayed with his close friend Justus Jonas and preached on the spot on 26 January. It was the same river running through the city that kept him in Halle's pulpit.

Coffin and death mask

Luther died in Eisleben on 18 February 1546; the next day, Jonas preached his funeral sermon at St Andrew's Church there. On the evening of 20 February, the coffin, on its way back to Wittenberg, reached Halle and lay that night in the Marktkirche's old sacristy; it was buried in Wittenberg on 22 February.

The church still holds a wax death mask and a cast of both hands, reputedly taken by the Halle painter Furtenagel at Luther's deathbed in Eisleben. But the earliest documented record dates only to 1663, and in 1926 the anthropologist Hahne substantially reworked it. Today it sits in a glass case in the tower, open to visitors only during limited hours — and whether or not you go and see it, the word “reputedly” has to come first.

The same city

Luther belongs to Wittenberg, about 63 km away as the crow flies. But in this city he is not a monument — he is a visiting preacher, a friend who stayed at Jonas's house, a traveler whose coffin rested here on its way home. Today, a fellowship of Chinese Christians worships in Chinese in this same city — the God Luther preached from the Marktkirche pulpit is the very God we believe in.

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