11-15-2006, 08:10 AM
Nov. 13, 2006, 7:45AM
<b>Pastor's suicide is seen as protest against Islam</b>
It is the latest event in a growing conflict between Christians and Muslims in Europe
By BRIAN MURPHY
Associated Press
ERFURT, GERMANY - We know this much: The 73-year-old pastor's last sermon focused on his fear that Christian Europe would be overwhelmed by Islam.
A few weeks later, at one of the most important Lutheran landmarks, the Rev. Roland Weisselberg soaked himself in gasoline and set himself ablaze.
He left no suicide note, and the meaning of his final words is still the subject of conjecture.
But in a time when Christians and Muslims in Europe lurch from one crisis to the next, the retired Lutheran minister is being proclaimed a self-martyr â the latest victim in a growing conflict between the cross and the crescent.
"What's sad is that many people are so quick to believe that he killed himself to protest Islam. They want to believe it," said Bishop Christoph Kaehler, who leads the German Protestant Church in the eastern Thuringia state, which includes historic Erfurt, where the 16th-century Reformation trailblazer Martin Luther took his first religious vows.
"Weisselberg has become a magnet for fears and suspicions about Muslims," Kaehler said. "It's an unfortunate lesson in how tense things have become."
Germany has felt that uneasiness in many ways recently.
Last month, a Turkish-born lawmaker sought protection from death threats after calling Islamic head scarves a symbol of oppression of women.
In Berlin, an opera company has become Europe's latest freedom of expression flash point. A planned production of Mozart's Idomeneo outraged Muslims with a scene depicting the severed heads of the Prophet Muhammad along with other religious figures.
<b>Not a bystander</b>
Pope Benedict XVI used a speech at a German university in September to decry violent trends in Islam, setting off a maelstrom of protests around the world. The German pontiff is scheduled to begin a visit to Turkey on Nov. 28 in his first papal trip to a mostly Muslim nation.
Weisselberg was not a silent bystander. He wrote letters to newspapers, venting on a range of topics. Most were packaged around his belief that European Christians had become too meek and separated from the faith's bold history.
In his last sermon in late September â called from retirement to fill in for an absent minister â Weisselberg said Christians in Europe must unite or risk being overrun by Islam in generations to come.
Then, on Oct. 31, he walked through the stone arches of the St. Augustine Monastery, a place where from 1505 to 1511 Luther lived, studied and took monastic vows.
Weisselberg pulled out a canister of gasoline hidden under his coat. An instant later, he was ablaze. Witnesses told authorities he cried two words: "Jesus" and "Oskar" â considered a reference to the Rev. Oskar Bruesewitz, who set himself on fire in 1976 as an apparent protest against the communist East German regime.
<b>Left behind letter</b>
Weisselberg died the following day. No formal suicide note was found. But his widow told a church official that her husband left behind a letter describing his angst over Islam's rising power in Europe.
Within hours, Weisselberg' s story was being told and retold as an act of self-martyrdom.
Anti-Muslim groups across Europe have exalted his name. Christian Web sites have given him top billing â in a repeat of the global cyber-eulogies for an Italian missionary, Sister Leonella Sgorbati, who was gunned down in Somalia in September in possible retaliation to the pope's comments on Islam.
<b>Pastor's suicide is seen as protest against Islam</b>
It is the latest event in a growing conflict between Christians and Muslims in Europe
By BRIAN MURPHY
Associated Press
ERFURT, GERMANY - We know this much: The 73-year-old pastor's last sermon focused on his fear that Christian Europe would be overwhelmed by Islam.
A few weeks later, at one of the most important Lutheran landmarks, the Rev. Roland Weisselberg soaked himself in gasoline and set himself ablaze.
He left no suicide note, and the meaning of his final words is still the subject of conjecture.
But in a time when Christians and Muslims in Europe lurch from one crisis to the next, the retired Lutheran minister is being proclaimed a self-martyr â the latest victim in a growing conflict between the cross and the crescent.
"What's sad is that many people are so quick to believe that he killed himself to protest Islam. They want to believe it," said Bishop Christoph Kaehler, who leads the German Protestant Church in the eastern Thuringia state, which includes historic Erfurt, where the 16th-century Reformation trailblazer Martin Luther took his first religious vows.
"Weisselberg has become a magnet for fears and suspicions about Muslims," Kaehler said. "It's an unfortunate lesson in how tense things have become."
Germany has felt that uneasiness in many ways recently.
Last month, a Turkish-born lawmaker sought protection from death threats after calling Islamic head scarves a symbol of oppression of women.
In Berlin, an opera company has become Europe's latest freedom of expression flash point. A planned production of Mozart's Idomeneo outraged Muslims with a scene depicting the severed heads of the Prophet Muhammad along with other religious figures.
<b>Not a bystander</b>
Pope Benedict XVI used a speech at a German university in September to decry violent trends in Islam, setting off a maelstrom of protests around the world. The German pontiff is scheduled to begin a visit to Turkey on Nov. 28 in his first papal trip to a mostly Muslim nation.
Weisselberg was not a silent bystander. He wrote letters to newspapers, venting on a range of topics. Most were packaged around his belief that European Christians had become too meek and separated from the faith's bold history.
In his last sermon in late September â called from retirement to fill in for an absent minister â Weisselberg said Christians in Europe must unite or risk being overrun by Islam in generations to come.
Then, on Oct. 31, he walked through the stone arches of the St. Augustine Monastery, a place where from 1505 to 1511 Luther lived, studied and took monastic vows.
Weisselberg pulled out a canister of gasoline hidden under his coat. An instant later, he was ablaze. Witnesses told authorities he cried two words: "Jesus" and "Oskar" â considered a reference to the Rev. Oskar Bruesewitz, who set himself on fire in 1976 as an apparent protest against the communist East German regime.
<b>Left behind letter</b>
Weisselberg died the following day. No formal suicide note was found. But his widow told a church official that her husband left behind a letter describing his angst over Islam's rising power in Europe.
Within hours, Weisselberg' s story was being told and retold as an act of self-martyrdom.
Anti-Muslim groups across Europe have exalted his name. Christian Web sites have given him top billing â in a repeat of the global cyber-eulogies for an Italian missionary, Sister Leonella Sgorbati, who was gunned down in Somalia in September in possible retaliation to the pope's comments on Islam.