BERLIN (ANS) -- Prayers and candles brought the Berlin wall down. They proved stronger than the powers of a decaying Communist dictatorship in East Germany.

The churches in Germany are commemorating the 20th anniversary of the opening of the Berlin wall November 9 with thanksgiving. In 1989 prayer meetings for peace had developed into a mass movement for change in East Germany, which culminated in massive street demonstrations in Leipzig and other cities in 1989.

Finally, the regime's spokesman Guenther Schabowski announced at a press conference in Berlin, November 9, that East Germans would be free to cross the border checkpoints immediately. The resulting mass movement to West Berlin and West Germany brought down the wall after 28 years and led the way to re-unification on October 3, 1990.

Germany's President Horst Koehler and Chancellor Angela Merkel attended an ecumenical worship service in Berlin's Gethsemane-Church, one of the centers of the peaceful revolution in 1989. The Protestant Bishop of Berlin, Wolfgang Huber, praised the courage shown by East Germans who had confronted the brutal might of the regime with candles and prayers.