I spent last week in Løgumkloster, the Danish education centre attached to an old and beautifully maintained Cistercian church. It is a church in which it is really possible to feel the beauty of holiness. The interior is essentially empty, with minimal furnishing. There is neither the clutter of side altars, statues, and shrines found in so many older Catholic churches, nor the display boards cluttering up so many Anglican cathedrals and abbeys. There is a beautiful late medieval altarpieces and a fine Baroque pulpit, but, apart from the plain waxed wood pews, that is it. There are no paintings or wall monuments on the red brick walls that could be new. There is no stained glass, and the northern light streams in without interruption. Outside, everything is still. A good place to be quiet in. To recollect. To be.
I’ve written before in this blog about the war memorial here – this is a part of Denmark that used to belong to the Duchy of Schleswig and that was annexed by Prussia following the Second Schleswig War. This meant that during the First World War, men from this small town were recruited into the Imperial German Army, and man fell. It reverted to Denmark in a plebiscite mandated by the Treaty of Versailles. The inscription is in German and Danish. The German text refers to those who died in defence of hearth and home, the Danish to those who died under duty’s heavy burden. In this respect it is an exceptionally poignant memorial, since those who died, died for a country that their community afterwards turned against. This time, I noticed another feature. In addition to the date on which those who are remembered here fell, there is also the date of their birth. This is marked by a star, suggesting that each new life is like a new star rising in the heavens, an apt symbol for the feelings of many new parents standing over their infant’s crib. The day of their death is marked by a cross, the light that shone with their morning start extinguished. This immeasurably deepens the pathos of the monument, reminding us that these are not just names, but each name a new world, a bearer of manifold and beautiful possibilities – killed, in the end, for nothing, for a cause their families would disavow. Yet they were not loved the less.
Confessions of a devout European 
I haven’t been to this church but feel that I have. Thank you for painting this poignant picture with such sensitivity.
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Dear George
I was sad that I could not participate in your course because I had âkonfirmationsâ on the 4 th of May. Do you have one in the autumn?
And for some fun or notâ¦Have you noticed this one? Or have I sent it to you before? This is the problem with Donald T.;)
All the best, Kristin
Kristin Falck Saghaug
Sognepræst – Margrethekirken
Kris@km.dk
tel. 23239522
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Hi Kristin: I realized that this was confirmation season in Denmark. Hopefully I will get to do another course at Løgumkloster: this one (I think) went really well with great engagement from the participants – The Idiot is really very remarkable though also problematic text. I’ll let you know if any plans develop. I couldn’t see an attachment – can you send it direct by regular gmail. Though DJT’s harlequinade is so jarring in face of the overwhelming threats of the present world disorder.
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Hi George
Thank you for an intense reading of the Idiot and a most enjoyable week in Løgumkloster.
I am glad that you found pleasure also in the beautiful church and the – what I would call – exquisite church furnishing. I must admit that I have a weakness for furniture, and I think that the restoration of the interior finished in 2015 has been very successful. That’s why I’ve studied architectural heritage. The preservation of the church interior with new benches has maintained old skills by using old methods of joinery. You could clearly see that when the light shone on the benchends which weren’t carved with decorations, but joined together in the same way as the old pews that were removed.
I’m also glad to read you comments on the memorial stones outside the church wall. I like that spot. Your comment reflects our conversation on the last day, but it also reminded me of a film I remember from my childhood. Ditte Menneskebarn, based on the novel by the Danish writer Martin Andersen Nexø – the old communist – written upon impression of the Russian Revolution – the film starting with the sentence: ‘Hver gang der fødes et menneske på Jorden tændes der en stjerne på himlen’. At least that is what I remember from the film. I’m not quite sure though that was what Andersen Nexø wrote. But – a film about a child that was not much loved, though of course by a few. And God was not in Martin Andersen Nexøs writing.
On my way home from Løgumkloster I visited a small beautiful church with many medieval objects on the whitewashed walls, and then I thought I’d visit Christiansfeld too on my way. I have written a small article about Christiansfeld – a World Heritage City – thus written from an architectural heritage perspective of course. Still Christiansfeld is planned by the Hernnhuters and their ideas of an ideal town. In my article I argue that Christiansfeld is build as the New Jerusalem, and that the heritage authorities have forgotten how religious ideas has formed the town …. Well, then I thought: Was Søren Kierkegaard Hernnhuter? He sat with his father at their meetings in Copenhagen and listened. How much did that influence him, I wonder. That would be interesting to know. And when I came home I found out that someone of course already has studied that, – ha,ha. So, now I have Anders Kingo’s: Søren Kierkegaard and the Hernnhuters on my way.
Just to say, that yes, studying architectural heritage is something quite different, and yet I find that I have used my theology a lot, and it has expanded my theological interests too.
Just one more comment …I think the film with Kabuchi actors were brilliant. Talking about Christologi in the Idiot I would say that the film made it. A threesome. A story of reconciliation. A reconciliation of the two by the death of God ? Nastasia as the icon, the image of the outsider who has to die. Don’t know if that holds water, but …. A brilliant film. Sensous acting.
Thank you again.
Birgitte
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Dear Birgitte: I’m so glad you enjoyed the course – many thanks for your contribution to it. Good also to hear Nexø’s beautiful line. One of my students, Chris Barnett, wrote a thesis on Kierkegaard and pietism and was very interested in the Herrnhuter links: he argued that what Kierkegaard said about monasticism in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript was really directed at pietism’s ascetic world-denial, though he also shared many pietist tendencies. And so glad you liked the film – I wasn’t at all sure how it would work. There’s definitely a certain resonance (to use that word again) between the dead Christ and Nastasia’s body in the final scene. A reconciliation, perhaps – but resurrection?
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