Slovenians observing Reformation Day
Ljubljana, 31 October - Reformation Day, a public holiday and work-free day, will be marked on Thursday with a mass celebrated at the Ljubljana protestant church as well as a ceremony at the Trubar Homestead south of the capital which will include a keynote by President Borut Pahor.
Ljubljana
Primož Trubar statue.
Photo: Tamino Petelinšek/STA
Today's mass will be attended by a number of senior state officials, including President Pahor and Prime Minister Marjan Šarec. It will be celebrated by Geza Filo, the outgoing head of Slovenia's Evangelical Lutheran Church.
The Protestant leader told the STA in an interview ahead of the holiday that the spirit and teachings of the Reformation were still relevant five centuries after the movement to reform the Roman Catholic Church pushed through Europe.
The Reformation paved the way for the first printed books in the Slovenian language as well as the Slovenian translation of the entire Bible - the foundation of the Slovenian literary language and national identity.
The main ceremony marking Reformation Day took place on the eve of the holiday, with Speaker Dejan Židan delivering the keynote.
There will be another high-level ceremony today at the Trubar Homestead, the birthplace of Primož Trubar (1508-1586), a Protestant priest and scholar and one of the leading Slovenian Reformation figures.
He was the first to translate parts of the Bible into Slovenian and authored the first Slovenian printed book, consolidating Slovenian as a literary language.