mdr.de, 18.09.2022
The pastor of the Osternienburger Land parish is on the road in his parish area with a special vehicle. So when the church bells ring on Sunday morning, a three-wheeled electric vehicle is parked outside the church in Elsnigk. This is because the vicar doesn’t drive to church in his car, but in his TWIKE. An environmentally friendly alternative, says the churchman, who travels several hundred kilometers every week. Jana Müller went for a TWIKE ride with him.
Open the door, get in and off you go: even getting into the TWIKE of Pastor Dankmar Pahlings from Osternienburg is a bit of an adventure. “Put your left foot on this strut, hold on to the outer wall and then slide into the seat.” And then I’m sitting in it, in the small three-wheeled light electric vehicle, where you put your feet out in front to pedal. The TWIKE is a hybrid, similar to an electric bike, equipped with an electric motor that you can support by pedaling. You can get a little further on a single charge, says Dankmar Pahlings, and do something for your fitness at the same time, which the priest does several times a day.
A large community
Six churches belong to the parish of Osternienburg, and church services are held in all of them, with varying degrees of regularity, as Pastor Pahlings says, but: “The pastor’s job is of course to be there for people in very different life situations. You visit parishioners for their birthdays or meet with couples who want to get married. Of course, you’re on the road a lot” (Dankmar Pahlings, Pastor Osternienburg).
Added to this are the almost daily trips to Dessau, where Pahlings works as a hospital chaplain alongside his parish duties. This quickly adds up to several hundred kilometers per week.
The paths for pastors are becoming more
Johannes Killyen, press spokesman for the Evangelical Church of Anhalt, also confirms that pastors are responsible for ever larger areas. The Osternienburg parish district today includes the same parishes as it did 20 years ago. However, for a long time the region was served by a full pastorate, while Pastor Pahlings only had half a post. The trend is even clearer in the parishes of Bobbau-Wolfen-Nord, Thurland, Raguhn, Priorau-Schierau and Jeßnitz. Just three years ago, there were three pastors working here, today there is only one. There are currently around 40 pastors responsible for the 210 places of worship in the regional church of Anhalt. However, Killyen pointed out that the pastors are supported by staff from the areas of church music, church education and administration.
For around two and a half years, Pahlings has been using the TWIKE for the majority of his journeys, thereby doing his bit for the environment. “My wife and I are of the opinion that we need a different form of mobility, that something urgently needs to change.”
An environmentally friendly alternative
“Compared to a combustion car, the TWIKE consumes much less energy. And even compared to a normal electric car, which is simply much heavier. You have to move almost two tons, of which I only weigh 90 kilos. And the rest that you drive back and forth is the motor, battery or tank and a lot of sheet metal. That’s different with the TWIKE, which is largely made of plastic.” The TWIKE weighs just over 300 kilos and can cover a distance of 80 kilometers on a battery charge of around six kilowatt hours.
The ideal vehicle for Dankmar Pahlings, who sometimes jets along the main roads on his TWIKE. “I could also drive on the A9. But I haven’t done that yet and I don’t intend to. If you’re driving at 70 km/h, that wouldn’t be advisable.”
When the TWIKE stops
And even when it snows, the priest prefers to leave the TWIKE parked. The front wheel in the middle of the vehicle would then unfortunately get stuck in the snow. But it doesn’t snow that often in Osternienburg, says Dankmar Pahlings. He closes the top and takes me for a spin around the church. And I’ll tell you one thing: In the TWIKE, 30 km/h feels insanely fast.
