A Young German Reclaims His Catholic Heritage
EGINA: How old are you? What do you do for a living? Where do you
live?
A: I’m 25 years old and was born in Trier, the oldest city in Germany, which has a rich Catholic tradition. Now, I’m studying Japanese studies/economics and living in Japan.
REGINA: How old were you when you left the church?
A: I can’t pinpoint a specific year; it was rather a process of moving away from the Church and Christianity. I was baptized as a baby, received Holy Communion at the age of 9, and went to Confirmation with 14, as it is tradition in Germany. Of course, at my first Holy Communion I didn’t think about religion in a deep way, but in retrospect I cannot say, that I had a relationship to God either. And to be honest, I only wanted to get confirmed for the money.
As a teenager I was fascinated by Zen-Buddhism, but didn’t practice it. So until I was 17, I had my own one world outlook peppered with a bit of Buddhism.
R
Photo's by Harry Stevens
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