Former German chancellor Angela Merkel will take the pulpit at the Maria Laach Abbey church on March 4 for a fasting sermon, the Benedictine community announced.
According to the abbey, she will not deliver a political address; rather, she will share “spiritual impulses drawn from Christian tradition” amid the monks’ prayers and organ music.
The announcement speaks of Merkel as a guest speaker whose long‑standing public role was marked by responsibility – weighing decisions, serving the common good, and keeping sight of what can be achieved from a values‑based stance. In the context of Lent, her words are meant to inspire a practice of restraint: observe, examine, organize, and from that move forward to the next step.
Merkel has known the cadence of a sermon from early childhood, following in the footsteps of her father, who was an evangelical pastor in the former GDR.