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"Katharina von Bora: The Nun who Ran Away"
The Lutheran
Magazine of the LCA
Vol. 13, #18, October 15, 1975
In 1975, Dr. Ingetraut Ludolphy, a scholar, theologian and critic,
and the most prominent Luther researcher in East Germany at that time,
took me to for a ride through the East German country side, some thirty
miles east of Leipzig, to show me the ruins of the convent, Nimbschen,
from which Katharina von Bora, later to become the wife of Martin Luther,
had escaped during the Reformation. After the nuns received the news that
the prior and a group of monks in nearby Grimma had left the monastery,
the nuns in the convent appealed to Luther to help them escape. Katharina,
whom Luther affectionately called "Katie", escaped with eight
other nuns. The cover photo was provided by the publisher of The Lutheran.
Dr. Ludolphy collaborated with me by providing the text for my
award-winning book From Luther to 1580, A Pictorial Account, Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, MO., 1977. Thereafter, Augustana College, Rock Island,
IL, awarded Dr. Ludolphy the honorary degree, Doctor of Humane Letters.
Since she was not permitted to leave East Germany, her homeland behind
the Iron Curtain, I, on behalf of the college, presented the honorary
degree to her during a ceremony held at the Nikolai Church in Leipzig.
Erwin Weber
April, 1997
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