244. Martin & Katie

Martin Luther didn’t plan on getting married, but that changed when he met Katharina von Bora. Today on our journey back through the archives, Dr. Stephen Nichols offers a glimpse into the marriage of this Reformation couple—one filled with love, respect, and intentionality.

Well, welcome back to 5 Minutes in Church History. As you know, we have been re-airing episodes from our archives and it is October. That’s right, Reformation month. Back in 2017, we spent the entire month in Germany recording episodes on our friend Martin Luther and we’ve pulled one of those episodes for you to listen to. I hope you enjoy it. 

Welcome back to another episode of 5 Minutes in Church History. We are now 23 days into our journey through the life and the thought and legacy of Martin Luther, and today we are talking about one of the most important things in Luther's life, Luther would say to us one of the most important persons in his life. Today, we are talking about Martin and Katie, Katharina von Bora, Martin Luther's wife. Well, we are at a great location to be talking about this marriage. We are at the Augustinian Cloister here in Wittenberg, and I am actually sitting on the Luther Bench right outside the door to the Cloister. Katie had this bench put in and she had another bench on the other side of the door installed so that the two of them could sit and talk.

Luther was a very busy man and Katie wanted to make sure that the two of them would spend time together. So she had someone carve in these benches into this doorframe so that Herr Professor Dr. Martin Luther could have a conversation with his wife Katie. Luther, of course, was a former monk and Katie was a former nun. She was at the Nimbschen Convent, and she was there with some other nuns that were actually rescued by a friend of Luther's. He was a fish merchant, his name was Leonard Cupp, and he ended up at the monastery with barrels full of herring and he dropped off that load. It was late in the evening and in the middle of the night the nuns that wanted to escape got into those herring barrels on his cart and in the morning he went right out the gate with them. Well, he brought them here to Wittenberg and Luther found husbands for many of them.

And one of them who was having a hard time finding a husband that would please her was Katharina. She had her eyes on Martin. Well, Martin, wasn't all that interested in getting married at the time. You remember, he was an outlaw. He had a death sentence over him for the rest of his life, and while he could live with that, he didn't want to put that burden on a wife and maybe a future family. But he relented. Luther says that he married Katie for three reasons. Number one, to make the Pope angry. Number two, to show that he believed in his theology. Luther was preaching against a celibate clergy as early as 1518 and 19 and he was marrying priests and marrying former monks as early as 1520. And so he himself wanted to show he believed in his theology. And the third reason to get married, Luther said, was that he owed his parents grandchildren.

Well, those are an interesting set of three reasons to get married, but Katie married him nevertheless. And as they continued in their married life, a singular reason rose to the surface and it was his deep love for her. What we see as we look at this relationship is that Luther honored Katie. She was a very busy woman. Not only was she running the household here, and the Luthers had six children together, their children are Hans and Elizabeth and Magdalena, she's the one who died when she was 12 years old, and little Elizabeth, she died as an infant, only eight months old. Then the Luthers had Martin and Paul and their final daughter, Margaret. They had goats and they had chickens and they had pigs. They had a dog. They also had a brew house, a brewery that Katie ran. She had a fish hatchery here in Wittenberg. She had a large garden that she ran. This was a very busy woman who not only had all of those things going on but was also married to the great Dr. Martin Luther.

And this was their home here at the Black Cloister. At one point, Luther was going to say this, "I shall die as one who loves and lauds marriage." Prior to Luther, marriage was not seen as that great of a thing. The priests and the nuns, of course, they were not to be married and there was this sense in which marriage was looked down upon. Well, Luther, through his marriage and through his teaching, redeemed marriage as it were. And so indeed he died as one who both loved marriage and lauded marriage, and he loved his wife, Katie. That's the story of Martin and Katie. I'm Steve Nichols. Thanks for joining us for 5 Minutes in Church History.