Christian Liberals & Progressive People of Faith

The traditional Lutheran Communion service is based on the Roman Catholic Mass, with the Kyrie ("Lord Have Mercy&quot , the Gloria in Excelsis ("Glory to God in the Highest&quot , the Agnus Dei ("Lamb of God&quot , and the Sanctus ("Holy, Holy, Holy Lord&quot intact. He removed the requirement for private confession and added a group confession.

He removed reverence for the saints and the Virgin Mary and the use of Latin, believing that the entire service should be in the language of the people so that they could be active participants instead of just spectators at an event they couldn't understand.

He added congregational singing, participation in the responses, and the people receiving wine as well as bread at Communion. As in the Roman Catholic Mass, Communion remained the focal point of worship.

Luther was originally an Augustinian monk, and he had no intention of forming a new church, only to reform the Roman Catholic church.

The Calvinist churches represented a more decisive break with Roman Catholic tradition. They had no set order of worship, and the focal point of the service was the sermon. They had Communion only four times a year.

When we visited Germany many years ago, my father, a Lutheran pastor and church history buff, told us that when Germany was united in 1870, the Kaiser required the Lutheran and Calvinist churches to unite to form the Evangelical United Church, which is still the state church of many provinces in Germany. (Needless to say, it is nothing like what we think of as "evangelical" churches.) However, you can tell which churches were originally Lutheran and which ones were originally Calvinist. The formerly Lutheran churches have the altar as the focal point and may have crucifixes. The Lutherans also kept the statuary and stained glass windows. The formerly Calvinist churches have the pulpit as the focal point, only plain crosses instead of crucifixes, and no statuary or stained glass windows, although some of the Lutheran churches lost their stained glass windows in the bombing raids of World War II, so this is no longer a foolproof clue.

Hope this answers your question.