[Chat] RARE BOOK TO BE SHOWN AS LUTHER EXHIBIT OPENS IN BALTIMORE

[william.schlegel at us.army.mil]

RARE BOOK TO BE SHOWN AS LUTHER EXHIBIT OPENS IN BALTIMORE

(Baltimore, MD)     One of the rarest books, in Baltimore, a first
edition of Luther's translation of the New Testament into German, will
be on display for one night only, Friday, November 14, 2003, at 7 p.m.
at Zion Church of the City of Baltimore. The public is invited to view
the book as part of the opening night of a traveling exhibit on the life
and works of Martin Luther, which will be housed at Zion Church until
November 23.

Opening night attendees will have the opportunity to hear a renowned
Luther scholar, the Rev. Dr. Eric Gritsch, speak on "Luther's
Reformation: Impact and Legacy." Authentic German food will be
available, and the  traveling exhibit from Wittenberg, Germany, will be
open to the public for the first time in Zion's historic Adlersaal.
Baltimore was chosen to be one of just 14 cities in the U.S. and Canada
to host this exhibit, which was originally displayed at the tenth
assembly of the Lutheran World Federation in Canada this past summer.

The book in question is the so-called "September Testament of 1522,"
written during Luther's confinement in Wartburg Castle. The first press
run of 3,000 copies sold out in two months, despite its extremely high
price, equal at the time to the purchase of a calf. According to the
Rev. Holger Roggelin, pastor of Zion Church, "Its influence on the
Reformation as well as on the development of the German language cannot
be underestimated."

The copy on display came to Baltimore through the extensive Bible
collection of one of Zion's earlier pastors, Julius Hofmann, and was
presented to the Johns Hopkins University after Hofmann's death in 1928.
Together with a first edition of Luther's famous table talks, these
items will be shown thanks to the generosity of Hopkins' Milton S.
Eisenhower Library and its Kurrelmeyer Curator of Special Collections,
Cynthia Requardt.

For more information about the many lectures, concerts, worship services
and other public events scheduled during the exhibit's stay in
Baltimore, call the Zion Church office, (410)727-3939 or visit the
church Web site, http://www.zionbaltimore.org/. Zion Church, a
congregational of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, is located
at City Hall Plaza, 400 E. Lexington Street, Baltimore, MD 21202. It is
now the only church in Maryland to offer a weekly service in German,
which is scheduled on Sundays at 9:15 a.m., with the service celebrated
in English at 11:15 a.m. An ecumenical midweek prayer service is offered
Wednesdays at 12:20 p.m.