{"id":74942,"date":"2025-05-04T22:40:12","date_gmt":"2025-05-04T22:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/74942\/"},"modified":"2025-05-04T22:40:12","modified_gmt":"2025-05-04T22:40:12","slug":"may-the-4th-be-with-you-church-in-germany-stages-cosplay-star-wars-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/74942\/","title":{"rendered":"May the 4th be with you: church in Germany stages cosplay \u2018Star Wars\u2019 service"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The force was strong with one German church on Sunday where a Protestant pastor marked the unofficial \u201cStar Wars Day\u201d of May 4 with a galactic-themed service.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Kitted out with atmospheric smoke, special lighting and a replica of the Millennium Falcon spaceship from the beloved sci-fi films, the church near the western German city of Cologne organised its space-themed service in an effort to attract younger attendees.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Wielding a lightsaber and dressed in a cape like a Jedi knight, Pastor Samuel D\u00f6rr addressed around 60 visitors in Bensberg in the western-German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with some in the audience even showing up in Star Wars costumes.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Helma Heider, an 82-year-old church-goer, said the cosplay service was \u201cextraordinary and unlike the usual services\u201d.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Star Wars Day has evolved over the years into an informal holiday celebrating the space epic and its surrounding franchise.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">It was created by fans as a sly nod to one of the films\u2019 most popular catchphrases: \u201cMay the force be with you.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The force was strong with one German church on Sunday where a Protestant pastor marked the unofficial \u201cStar&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74943,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[10726,37022,557,37024,823,2000,299,1824,37023,37017,714,37021,36545,37018,37020,37019,4242],"class_list":{"0":"post-74942","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-andor","9":"tag-bensberg","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-chris-taylor","12":"tag-disney","13":"tag-eu","14":"tag-europe","15":"tag-germany","16":"tag-greater-new-hope-chamber-of-commerce","17":"tag-helma-heider","18":"tag-joe-biden","19":"tag-lucasfilm","20":"tag-mark-hamill","21":"tag-may-the-4th","22":"tag-north-rhine-westphalia","23":"tag-rancho-obi-wan","24":"tag-star-wars"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114451973634901256","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}