The opening or fall of the Berlin Wall was an unexpected event for the people most directly affected, but even more so for the world at large. The ecumenical movement was no exception. However, the events in 1989 East Germany were to have a wide and long lasting impact on it that can still be felt today.
To be sure, large numbers of people from the former German Democratic Republic had left the country since the opening of the border between Hungary and Austria in the summer of 1989. Also, a growing network of civic groups, struggling for fundamental social and political change in the country, had emerged. They had benefited from the protection by the churches and were inspired by the ecumenical assemblies earlier in the year at Magdeburg and Dresden as part of the conciliar process on Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation.
Similar groups and movements had been operating in neighbouring countries already for some time. All of this had created a dynamic pushing for change, especially after the large, explicitly non-violent demonstration in Leipzig on Monday, 9 October 1989. But even then, few people expected that the wall would come down so soon, preparing the way for the end of communist rule not only in East Germany but in the entire region of central and eastern Europe and eventually overcoming the division of Germany and of Europe.
The series of events taking place in Europe from the summer of 1989 continuing well into the year 1990 and complemented by radical changes in South Africa and in other parts of the world had profound implications for the ecumenical movement. During the four decades following the First Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Amsterdam 1948, ecumenical efforts for justice and peace had been conditioned by the antagonism of the two major power-blocks and its consequences for countries in the southern hemisphere.
Ecumenical organisations, especially the WCC and the Conference of European Churches had tried to maintain links with the churches in the countries under Communist rule. Their witness for peace under the threat of nuclear confrontation had finally borne fruit. The 1990 Paris Charter for a "new Europe" appeared to herald in a new world order of peace and justice and a process of genuine disarmament began to take shape.
