"Open-church night spreads" in Austria

From The Tablet:

In Austria more than a third of a million people flocked to a spectacular array of late evening events staged on Friday night in hundreds of churches across the country.

Co-ordinators of the Long Night of the Churches said some 330,000 people attended 3,250 free events such as concerts, debates and lighting displays that took place in some 739 churches that are all part of the Ecumenical Council of Churches.

Since the first Long Night of the Churches was held in Vienna nine years ago it has been adopted by the Czech Republic - where 1,300 churches were involved this year - and in Slovakia, Hungary, South Tirol and Estonia.

The Long Night of the Churches was a "many-faceted door-opener to Christianity", Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schönborn said in his welcome to the participants in the Czech Republic this year.

Above: Austrian tightrope walker Christian Waldner makes his way along a wire above the roof of St. Stephen's Cathedral at the start of the Long Night of the Churches. The wire was fixed between the cathedral's south towers about 200 feet off the ground. Photo: CNS/Leonhard Foeger, Reuters