German Evangelical Church Federation

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The German Evangelical Church Federation was an association of Protestant regional churches in Germany founded on May 25, 1922 . In 1933 he was supported by the German Protestant Church replaced the turn after the Second World War, the Evangelical Church in Germany succeeded (EKD).

prehistory

The growing together of German Protestantism is connected with the awakening national idea in the 19th century. Since the Reformation , Protestantism in Germany was organized within the territories within the German Empire; therefore he did not know of any “national” organization. The differences between the Lutheran and Reformed confessions that had existed since the beginning of the Reformation had a separating effect, but they lost their binding force and formative power in the course of the 18th century due to Pietism and the Enlightenment ; the new denominationalism since the early 19th century remained a marginal episode in church history.

The first approaches to the formation of a German Protestant church were organizationally expressed in the so-called Eisenach Church Conference , which had been a joint advisory body for Protestant church leaders since 1852. From Germany, only the mainly Reformed Lippe Regional Church and the Lutheran Regional Church of the Principality of Reuss older line did not participate. Since 1903 the church conference had been organizationally strengthened by a permanent commission, the German Evangelical Church Committee (DEKA). There was also a nationally oriented lay movement, the Evangelical Union, founded in 1886 to protect German-Protestant interests . This group reached a level of 500,000 members in 1914 and had a clear anti-Catholic and German national program.

The end of the monarchies, which ended the sovereign church regime, and the adoption of the Weimar Constitution of 1918/19 enabled the churches to organize themselves without state directives. In the discussions on how this should be done, the question was whether German Protestantism should unite in a unified imperial church, as happened in 1933, or whether it should come together in a church federation in which the organizational and confessional independence of the individual regional churches were preserved. In preparation for the DEKA, on 1–5 September 1919 in Dresden 341 delegates from various evangelical groups and church leaderships met for the first German Evangelical Church Congress and decided to keep the “regional church principle”. After a constitution had been drawn up and adopted at the second German Evangelical Church Congress in Stuttgart in mid-September 1921, the 28 German regional churches founded the German Evangelical Church Federation in Wittenberg on May 25, 1922 (Ascension Day) . Shortly before (1920) the Reformed cantonal churches in Switzerland had merged to form the Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches .

purpose

According to its constitution, the federation existed “in order to safeguard and represent the common interests of the German Protestant regional churches, to bring about a close and permanent union of the same, to cultivate the general consciousness of German Protestantism and for the religious and moral worldview of the German Reformation the combined forces of the German To set up Reformation churches - all of this subject to the full independence of the allied churches in confession, constitution and administration. ” Communion between the member churches ( intercommunion ) did not exist and was not actively sought.

Constitution

The German Evangelical Church Federation had three constitutional organs: the Kirchentag as a synodal organ with 210 delegates, the Church Council with representatives of the 28 regional churches and the Church Committee as an executive body, the 36 members of which were each half elected by the Kirchentag and the Church Council. The chairmanship of the church committee (as since 1903) was chaired by the respective president of the Old Prussian Evangelical Higher Church Council (EOK), who was thus the highest representative of German Protestantism.

In 1924 the Federation of Churches was recognized by the Reich Minister of the Interior as a corporation under public law .

tasks

In its relatively short history, the Federation of Churches was primarily dedicated to the exchange of information and coordination between the individual federal churches, the maintenance of ecumenical relationships and the supply of pastors to the German Protestant communities abroad.

Member churches

The individual churches are marked as Lutheran, Reformed or Union, as far as the name at the time is not evident.

  1. Evangelical Church of Anhalt (uniert)
  2. United Evangelical Protestant Church in Baden
  3. Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria on the right of the Rhine
  4. Evangelical Church in the Oldenburg region of Birkenfeld (uniert)
  5. Braunschweig Evangelical Lutheran regional church
  6. Bremen Evangelical Church (united)
  7. Evangelical Regional Church Frankfurt am Main (uniert)
  8. Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Hamburg state
  9. Evangelical Lutheran Regional Church of Hanover
  10. Evangelical Reformed Church of the Province of Hanover , until 1925 Evangelical Reformed Church of the Province of Hanover
  11. Evangelical Church in Hesse (uniert)
  12. Evangelical Church in Hessen-Kassel (uniert)
  13. Lippe regional church (reformed)
  14. Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Lübeck state
  15. Evangelical Lutheran regional church of the Oldenburg part of Lübeck
  16. Evangelical Lutheran Church of Mecklenburg-Schwerin
  17. Evangelical Lutheran Church of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
  18. Evangelical Church in Nassau (uniert)
  19. Evangelical Lutheran Church in Oldenburg
  20. United Protestant-Evangelical-Christian Church of the Palatinate (Palatinate State Church) (uniert)
  21. Evangelical Church of the Old Prussian Union (ApU, EKapU)
  22. Evangelical Lutheran Church in Reuss older line
  23. Evangelical Lutheran regional church of the Free State of Saxony
  24. Evangelical Lutheran Regional Church Schaumburg-Lippe
  25. Evangelical Lutheran Regional Church Schleswig-Holstein
  26. Thuringian Evangelical Church (Lutheran)
  27. Evangelical Church in Waldeck (uniert), until 1922 Evangelical Church in Waldeck-Pyrmont
  28. Evangelical Church in Württemberg (Lutheran)

Later joined:

  1. Evangelical Brethren Union in Germany
  2. Evangelical Church A. u. HB in Austria (from 1926)
  3. Riograndens Synod in Brazil

literature

  • Writer: Federation of Churches, German Evangelical. In: Religion Past and Present . 2nd Edition. Vol. 3. Mohr, Tübingen 1929, Col. 871-876.
  • Klaus Scholder : The Churches and the Third Reich 1: Prehistory and Time of Illusions 1918–1934. Slightly supplemented edition. Ullstein, Frankfurt-Berlin 1986, pp. 34-39.
  • Gerhard Besier : The new Prussian church constitution and the formation of the German Evangelical Church Federation. In: Gerhard Besier, Eckhard Lessing (ed.): The history of the Evangelical Church of the Union. Vol. 3. Separation of State and Church. Church-political crises. Renewal of the church community (1918–1992). Leipzig 1999, pp. 76-117.
  • Handbook of the German Protestant Churches 1918 to 1949: organs - offices - associations - persons. Vol. 1: Supraregional institutions (= work on contemporary church history. Series A: Sources; 28). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2010, pp. 15–65. ISBN 9783647557847 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Achim Krämer: The present order of the Lord's Supper in the Evangelical Church in Germany: the question of the Lord's Supper in its theological, historical and ecclesiological significance with regard to communion between Lutheran, Uniate and Reformed regional churches. (= Ius ecclesiasticum: Contributions to Protestant Church Law and State Church Law , Vol. 16). Zugl .: Freiburg (Breisgau), Univ., Diss., 1969. Claudius-Verlag, Munich 1973, ISBN 3-532-71416-7 , p. 87.