On the outside of the town church of St. Marien in Wittenberg is a so-called "Judensau" stone relief. A vigil wants to achieve that the sculpture is taken off. Wittenberg (KNA) In Wittenberg on Wednesday, a weekly vigil against the "Judensau" relief starts on the outside of the city church of St. Marien. The aim was for the anti-Semitic sculpture to be removed within this year and brought to a museum site for research and education purposes, explained the newly founded "Alliance for the Decline of the Judensau in the Reformation Year 2017" on Monday in Wittenberg. The silent vigil is scheduled to take place on the local market square on Wednesdays between 3 pm and 7 pm until 21 June. The memorial plaque, which had already been admitted by the church in the ground in front of the city church in 1988, "represents for itself a historically valuable achievement against ecclesiastical and Lutheran anti-Semitism", but this is not sufficient, according to the initiators, an evangelical priest from Leipzig and an evangelical religious wife From Darmstadt. Only with the removal of the relief can "the serious departure of the Protestant Lutheran Church from its historical legacy of anti-Semitism" be made visible, especially since the city church as a "mother church of the Reformation" has a worldwide symbolic power. Auf dem Sandsteinrelief ist ein Rabbiner zu sehen, der den Ringelschwanz eines Schweins anhebt. Weitere Figuren suchen ganz offenbar nach den Zitzen des Tieres. Das Schwein gilt den Juden als unrein. Das Bildmotiv "Judensau" gehört seit dem Mittelalter zu den übelsten Schmähungen des Judentums. Noch heute finden sich entsprechende Darstellungen an rund 30 evangelischen und katholischen Kirchen in Deutschland. Die Liste reicht vom 700 Jahre alten Chorgestühl des Kölner Doms über zwei Figuren am Martinsmünster im elsässischen Colmar bis zu einem Säulenkapitell im Kreuzgang des Doms in Brandenburg an der Havel. Already last August, an online petition on the initiative of a Jewish British had demanded that the Wittenberg city church shortly before the 500th anniversary of the Reformation be a sign and the "Judensau" remove. Monumentists and scientists are following the debate with skepticism. Copyright 2017, KNA ( www.kna.de ). All rights reserved. All media usage is permitted only in the context of written agreements with KNA. eSnfef-aN-nnnNz