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Destinations Freiberg
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A Temple
Behind the Iron Curtain, Page 1
With intensity and wonder we scanned the faces of the Saints who arrived at the Freiberg temple rededication this past September 7. The children and young adults were fresh-faced and eager to see President Hinckley who would soon arrive, but it was the more mature faces that absorbed us, because we knew that behind each smile was a story of faith so enormous it moved a mountain.
The mountain was the oppressive, Communist government with its secret police and distrust of religion that finally gave a people permission to have their temple when the idea was all but unthinkable.
We knew the older people had lived in a bondage and deprivation and had triumphed. For years during the Communist era, they had kept the Church alive and vibrant with no temples, no patriarchal blessings, no print literature and manuals, no visits from Church headquarters, no missionaries, no mission calls—and yet their activity level had been the highest in the Church.
Who were these people and what did they know about God and faith that grows in the toughest of circumstances? Could we see it on their faces?
The Freiberg temple had nearly been doubled in size. The angel Moroni had been added to the spire.
Yet, the edifice looked much the same as it did before from the front, a purposeful move by architect Hanno Luschin. He said affection for the temple ran so deeply in the Saints here that they hadn’t chosen to change the look.
This was a group who did not take the temple for granted. Indeed, one of their leaders had once told President Thomas Monson that sometimes it was hard to accomplish their home teaching because so many people were in the temple.
It was an affection born not only of love and the Spirit, but deprivation, for most of the 40 years under Communist rule, the idea of enjoying temple blessings was only an unsatisfied yearning.
Frank Apel, who had been the first stake president in East Germany, said their longing was so great for the temple blessings that they used to let their imaginations run wild with possibilities. “I used to wonder if there could be a ship on the Baltic where a room could be set aside for us to receive our temple blessings.” In this world where a wall barred them from the rest of the world, very few were allowed to leave to go to the temple in Switzerland, and then, suspicious that they might not return, the government rarely let a married couple go. The government learned over time that the Saints were obedient citizens and could be counted on to return, but for decades that didn’t help most of them who lived without the fullness of the blessings they so deeply desired.
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