Celebration of Ecumenical Parody Requiem for Glacier. Faith, Hope and Environmental Protection and the greatest of these is Environmental Protection.

"Glacier Funeral": Requiem for the Pasterze

The Catholic and Protestant churches celebrated a "Glacier Funeral" on the Großglockner on Tuesday. The aim was to draw attention to the glacier melt and general effects of the climate crisis.

During the symbolic burial of a coffin made of ice on Austria's largest glacier, the Provost of Gurk, Engelbert Guggenberger, referred to humanity's responsibility for creation and the urgency to take it on "quickly and comprehensively". Numerous representatives from politics, science and sport accepted the invitation of the organisation Protect Our Winters Austria and the Churches responsible for creation to attend the Requiem.

Guggenberger, who is himself an enthusiastic mountaineer and climber, led a symbolic funeral procession with a coffin made of ice from the Pasterze to the Kaiser-Franz-Josefs-Höhe visitor centre together with the Protestant pastor Margit Leuthold, representing the Carinthian Protestant superintendent Manfred Sauer, who was ill.

"Environmental protection is form of charity"

"Environmental protection is a concrete form of charity. That is why it is also the concern and essential task of the Christian churches to raise public awareness of this again and again and in many different ways," said Episcopal Vicar Guggenberger.

"The Pasterze will lose its tongue sooner than expected and will no longer be Austria's largest glacier," Guggenberger pointed to the effects of "climate change caused by human behaviour". "We are not only losing an alpine natural beauty, the melting of the glacier has serious consequences for all of us."

Existential questions

When something great such as the "natural reality of an impressive glacier" comes to an end, it raises "existential questions about death and life, about endings and beginnings, about past and future," the cathedral provost said. The disappearance of the glacier is not only a great loss for the present, but above all a painful reduction in the quality of life of future generations.

Therefore, "a new social debate is needed about what kind of lifestyle we need and want in the future". Ultimately, however, each and every individual must ask himself or herself how personal lifestyles can be changed in such a way that sustainability is put into practice in everyday life, said the clergyman.

The ideal world is melting away

The Requiem was "not just a symbolic action, but a call to conversion", emphasised the Protestant pastor Margit Leuthold. "Our mountains here are reacting to global climate change and our image of the perfect world here with us is melting away with the glacier," Leuthold said. She said it was necessary to open "eyes and ears" "for the demands that young people are making to us, who are worried about the hesitant climate policy".

In addition to the church representatives, National Council members Carina Reiter (ÖVP), Lukas Hammer and Meri Disoski (both Greens) and Walter Rauch (FPÖ) had announced their participation, as had European Parliament member Andreas Schieder (SPÖ). "The funeral symbolises the loss of our Pasterze and draws attention to the effects of the climate crisis with all clarity," Hammer stressed in a statement on Tuesday. "It is a wake-up call that must not leave any of us cold. We must finally recognise climate protection as our most important common task - across all party lines," the Green politician appealed.

From the sporting side, ÖSV athlete Julian Schütter and freeride world champion Manuela Mandl had confirmed their attendance. Representatives of the tourism region, the Hohe Tauern National Park, Climate Alliance Carinthia and Protect our Winters were also present.

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