Buß- Und Bettag
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' ( Repentance and Prayer Day) was a public holiday in Germany, and is still a public holiday in
Saxony Saxony, officially the Free State of Saxony, is a landlocked state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Bavaria, as well as the countries of Poland and the Czech Republic. Its capital is Dresden, and ...
. In Germany, Protestant church bodies of
Lutheran Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism that emerged under the work of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German friar and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church launched ...
, Reformed (Calvinist) and United denominations celebrate a day of repentance and prayer. It is now celebrated on the penultimate Wednesday before the beginning of the Protestant
liturgical year The liturgical year, also called the church year, Christian year, ecclesiastical calendar, or kalendar, consists of the cycle of liturgical days and seasons that determines when feast days, including celebrations of saints, are to be obse ...
on the first Sunday of Advent; in other words, it is the Wednesday that falls between 16 and 22 November. However, it is not a statutory non-working holiday any more, except in the Free State of Saxony. In the Free State of Bavaria, it is a school holiday only.


Meaning and origin

The tradition of repentance and prayer is rooted in the
Book of Jonah The Book of Jonah is one of the twelve minor prophets of the Nevi'im ("Prophets") in the Hebrew Bible, and an individual book in the Christian Old Testament where it has four chapters. The book tells of a Hebrew prophet named Jonah, son of Amitt ...
of the
Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...
, where God sends out the prophet
Jonah Jonah the son of Amittai or Jonas ( , ) is a Jewish prophet from Gath-hepher in the Northern Kingdom of Israel around the 8th century BCE according to the Hebrew Bible. He is the central figure of the Book of Jonah, one of the minor proph ...
() in order to announce to the inhabitants of
Nineveh Nineveh ( ; , ''URUNI.NU.A, Ninua''; , ''Nīnəwē''; , ''Nīnawā''; , ''Nīnwē''), was an ancient Assyrian city of Upper Mesopotamia, located in the modern-day city of Mosul (itself built out of the Assyrian town of Mepsila) in northern ...
that God is to overthrow the city (Book of Jonah ):
4And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. 5So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. 6For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water: 8But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. 9Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not? 10And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.


As a feast day for Protestants

In mediaeval times Christians practised two kinds of days of repentance, those scheduled on particular events of emergency and those celebrated on the Ember days. After the
Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...
the Protestant congregations continued that tradition. The first day of prayer, scheduled by Emperor Charles V, was celebrated in 1532 by
Protestants Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...
in the
Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages, and lasted for a millennium ...
in
Strasbourg Strasbourg ( , ; ; ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est Regions of France, region of Geography of France, eastern France, in the historic region of Alsace. It is the prefecture of the Bas-Rhin Departmen ...
on the occasion of the Ottoman invasion at the eastern border of the Empire. In the following centuries different feast days of repentance and prayer were fixed within the many different Holy Roman German states of Protestant population.


As a statutory non-working holiday

In 1878 there were, in some
Provinces of Prussia The Provinces of Prussia () were the main administrative divisions of Prussia from 1815 to 1946. Prussia's province system was introduced in the Prussian Reform Movement, Stein-Hardenberg Reforms in 1815, and were mostly organized from duchies an ...
and the component German states of the Empire (1871–1918), 47 different such feast days, celebrated on 24 different dates. In 1893
Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...
ended this plurality for the different territorially organised Protestant church bodies within its territory.The territorially organised Protestant church bodies in Prussia were the Evangelical State Church of Prussia's older Provinces — comprising Old Prussia in the wide sense of this term, the ''Evangelical State Church of Frankfurt upon Main'' (), comprising the former Free City of Frankfurt upon Main, the ''Evangelical State Church in Nassau'' (, comprising the former
Duchy of Nassau The Duchy of Nassau (German language, German: ''Herzogtum Nassau'') was an independent state between 1806 and 1866, located in what became the Germany, German states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse. It was a States of the Confederation of th ...
), both merged with the Protestant church body of the
People's State of Hesse The People's State of Hesse () was one of the constituent states of Weimar Republic, Germany from 1918 to 1945, as the successor to the Grand Duchy of Hesse () after the defeat of the German Empire in World War I, on the territory of the curren ...
in September 1933 in today's Evangelical State Church of Hesse and Nassau (), today's Evangelical Lutheran State Church of Hanover (comprising the
Province of Hanover The Province of Hanover () was a Provinces of Prussia, province of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Free State of Prussia from 1866 to 1946. During the Austro-Prussian War, the Kingdom of Hanover had attempted to maintain a neutral position, alo ...
), ''Evangelical State Church of Hesse-Cassel'' (, for the former Electorate of Hesse-Cassel, merged in 1934 in today's Evangelical Church of Electoral Hesse–Waldeck (), and the former ''Evangelical-Lutheran State Church of Schleswig-Holstein'', which in 1977 merged with others to become part of the then new North Elbian Evangelical Lutheran Church. In 1882 most Reformed congregations in the ''Province of Hanover'' founded the ''Evangelical Reformed Church of the Province of Hanover'' (, since 1925 ''Evangelical Reformed State Church of the Province of Hanover'' (), which merged in 1989 in today's Evangelical Reformed Church in Bavaria and Northwestern Germany ().
In all of Prussia the last Wednesday before 23 November, or eleven days before the first Sunday of Advent, was fixed as ''Day of Repentance and Prayer'', being also a statutory holiday. Later Protestant church bodies in other German states followed, and in 1934 it was fixed nationwide for the date now usual. In 1939 ' was abolished as a statutory non-working holiday, in order to gain more working days during
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, and thus it was celebrated on the Sunday following its actual date. After the war ' was again celebrated on the aforementioned Wednesday, being again a statutory holiday in most
states of Germany The Federal Republic of Germany is a federation and consists of sixteen partly sovereign ''states''. Of the sixteen states, thirteen are so-called area-states ('Flächenländer'); in these, below the level of the state government, there is a ...
in all four sectors of
Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
and all four Occupation zones (except the Free State of Bavaria in the American zone). In 1952 also predominantly Catholic Bavaria made ' a statutory non-working holiday — first only in its predominantly Lutheran
counties A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...
, as of 1981 in all the Free State. In 1966 ' was abolished in the communist East
German Democratic Republic East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...
and in
East Berlin East Berlin (; ) was the partially recognised capital city, capital of East Germany (GDR) from 1949 to 1990. From 1945, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet occupation sector of Berlin. The American, British, and French se ...
as statutory non-working holiday in the course of reducing the working week to five days. After 3 October 1990, the day of unification of East Germany, East and
West Berlin West Berlin ( or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin from 1948 until 1990, during the Cold War. Although West Berlin lacked any sovereignty and was under military occupation until German reunification in 1 ...
with the West German Federal Republic of Germany, ' became a statutory non-working holiday in the East German states again. In 1994 the
Federal Government of Germany The Federal Government (, ; abbr. BReg) is the chief Executive (government), executive body of the Germany, Federal Republic of Germany and exercises executive power at the Federal level (Germany), federal level. It consists of the Chancellor ...
passed a law organising the financing of the federal nursing care insurance. It needed more funds, thus the federal government proposed to increase the working time of the German labour force by one day, without a corresponding increase in wages; the revenue from the additional unpaid labour day was used to secure the financing of the federal nursing care insurance. For this purpose the federal government, then led by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), proposed to the German states, which have the power to define religious feast days as statutory non-working holidays, to abolish the Protestant ' as a statutory non-working holiday. All German states agreed, except for the Free State of Saxony, which chose instead a higher charge on labour revenues, so that only there ' remained a statutory non-working holiday as of 1995. In Bavaria ' remained a day off in all schools and most kindergartens.


See also

* Days of humiliation and thanksgiving


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Buss- Und Bettag Protestant holy days Public holidays in Germany November observances Wednesday observances Christian festivals and holy days