On Reformation Day 1999, the Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church signed the Gemeinsame Erklärung zur Rechtfertigungslehre, the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. The ceremony took place in the Lutheran St. Anne’s Church in Augsburg. How a person is justified before God had been a central point of dispute in the Reformation. The direct history of the declaration began in Germany. A key step was a study, completed in 1986, that asked whether the old condemnations still divided the churches. The final text states a Konsens in Grundwahrheiten, a consensus in basic truths. Its aim was a differenzierter Konsens, a differentiated consensus, in which each side keeps its own tradition and language where these do not contradict each other. On that basis, the mutual condemnations of the 16th century zurückgenommen werden und heute nicht mehr gelten, are withdrawn and no longer apply today.