For twelve stormy years, Berlin's crusty, goateed Bishop Otto Dibelius has been head of the German Evangelical Church, the last important institution in Germany that the Communists have not succeeded in dividing between "imperialist West" and "peace-loving East." Year after year, the Red regime chipped away at Protestant prerogatives, persecuted pastors, and drove thousands of others into flight to the West. They played on pacifist tendencies wherever they showed themselves and vilified outspoken anti-Communists as atom-happy militarists.
But through it all—sometimes striking back, sometimes rolling with the punches —Dibelius and E.K.D.* struggled to maintain a sense of unity among its 40 million...