In 1935 Dietrich Bonhoeffer set up an illegal seminary in Finkenwalde, in opposition to the Nazi dominated structures of the National Church:

The programme for the day began and ended with two long services. In the morning the service was followed by half an hour’s meditation, an exercise that was not interrupted by the circumstances of the removal, though packing cases and youth hostel bunks were the only furniture. The services did not take place in church but round the ordinary dinner-table. They invariably began with a Psalm and a hymn specially chosen for the day. There followed a lesson from the Old Testament, a set verse from a hymn (sung daily for several weeks), a New Testament lesson, a period of extempore prayer and the recital of the Lord’s Prayer. Each service concluded with another set verse from a hymn. Readings from the Psalms and the Scripture took the form of a lectio continua, for preference without any omissions. In structure this very much resembled Anglican evensong. Bonhoeffer believed that this sequence of readings and prayers was the most natural and suitable form of service for theologians.1

Quite.

  1. From Eberhard Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: theologian, Christian, contemporary. ed. Edwin Robertson, tran. Eric Mosbacher (London: Collins, 1970). [↩]