Life Behind Convent Walls
Katherine von Bora was five years old when her father placed her in a Benedictine convent, and ten when she took her first vows at the Cistercian monastery of Marienthron. For the next decade, she lived the cloistered life—prayer, fasting, silence, and the unchanging rhythm of the canonical hours.
Then the writings of Martin Luther began circulating through Germany.
The Nun Escaped Convent
Katherine and eleven other nuns became convinced that their monastic vows contradicted Scripture. They wrote to Luther asking for help escaping—a dangerous request, since aiding runaway nuns was a capital offense. On Easter Eve 1523, a merchant named Leonard Kopp smuggled the twelve women out of the convent hidden in his covered wagon among fish barrels.
Marriage to Martin Luther
Most of the escaped nuns quickly married or returned to their families. But Katherine proved harder to settle. Two years later, she informed Luther through a mutual friend that she would be willing to marry either him or his colleague Nikolaus von Amsdorf. Luther, at forty-one, had given up on marriage—but Katherine's forthrightness impressed him.
"The Lord has thrown me into marriage," Luther wrote. On June 13, 1525, they wed. What began as duty grew into deep love. Katherine transformed the Black Cloister into a busy household, managing their finances, brewing beer, raising livestock, and hosting the students and visitors who filled their home. She bore six children and raised four orphaned nieces and nephews.
Serving God Outside Monastery
Luther called her "my lord Katie," "the morning star of Wittenberg," and "the boss of Zulsdorf" (their farm). When he died in 1546, he left her everything in his will—an unusual act of trust. Katherine had escaped one life of service to enter another, proving that devotion to God could flourish in a household as fully as in a cloister.
