Today marks the start of the 36th Kirchentag, the Assembly-Congress of the German Evangelical Church that will be the focal point of the Jubilee celebrations for the 500th anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation. This Kirchentag will be special since it will be celebrated along the Berlin-Wittenberg axis (the latter being the town where the Augustinian monk Martin Luther lived, and where, on 31 October 1517, he nailed his famous 95 theses to the doors of the Schlosskirche, the Castle Church, thereby starting the Protestant Reformation). On Saturday 27 and Sunday 28 May, Wittenberg will host celebrations, liturgical events and gatherings with more than 100,000 Protestant faithful from all over the world expected to attend. The main ecumenical celebrations, however, will be held this coming September and October. Furthermore, since the organisers of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) wanted to broaden the offer, they decided to fully engage eight other towns in the planning of celebrations, events, meetings and hospitality: Dessau, Erfurt, Halle, Eisleben, Jena, Weimar, Leipzig and Magdeburg – all in former East Germany. One of the main highlights will be an exchange of views between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former US President Barack Obama, both Protestants, with a US teacher and musician and a German student and social assistant. The event will take place tomorrow at 11am at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate.