The Monday Prayers of Leipzig

On October 9, 1989, seventy thousand East German citizens filled the streets of Leipzig, carrying candles in the autumn darkness. The communist regime had stationed troops and armored vehicles throughout the city, prepared to repeat the massacre of Tiananmen Square just months earlier. Hospitals quietly cleared beds, expecting mass casualties. The earth, it seemed, was about to give way.

But these marchers had come from St. Nicholas Church, where a small Monday prayer meeting had gathered faithfully since 1982 — sometimes just a dozen souls kneeling beneath the vaulted ceiling, asking God for peace. Week after week, year after year, they prayed while the Iron Curtain stood immovable as mountains. By autumn of 1989, those dozen had become thousands, then tens of thousands, spilling from the church doors into Karl Marx Square with nothing but candles and hymns.

That night, the soldiers never fired. Commanders hesitated. Orders dissolved. One officer later said, "We were ready for everything — except candles and prayers." Within a month, the Berlin Wall fell without a single shot.

The Almighty did not need armies to topple an empire. He broke the bow and shattered the spear with flickering candlelight held in trembling hands. The nations raged, the kingdoms tottered, but God lifted His voice and the earth melted. When He dwells in the midst of His people, even the mightiest walls cannot stand until morning.