eventually moving on through a stone-dead red light district to the �Neues Rathaus� (huge Victorian-vintage town hall) where the Opernplatz service was being relayed live on a huge screen, with signing translation. A visiting RC bishop made some moderately radical ecumenical comments, which were warmly welcomed.

400 000 people gradually crammed into the city, and every church organisation, it seemed, in Germany, had set up a stall to give out information and/or sell refreshments. A sausage-stall from the German Chernobyl solidarity group, for instance. This was the � Encounter Evening � = Abend der Begegnung