Military chaplaincy contract
The military chaplaincy contract was concluded in 1957 between the Federal Republic and the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) and forms the basis for evangelical military chaplaincy in the Bundeswehr in the Federal Republic of Germany.
On February 22, 1957, Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer (CDU), Defense Minister Franz Josef Strauss , the EKD Council Chairman Otto Dibelius and the head of the church chancellery Heinz Brunotte signed the contract as the basis for evangelical pastoral care in the Bundeswehr .
Hermann Kunst was appointed the first part-time military bishop by the EKD Council in December 1957. This was followed by Sigo Lehming in 1972 , Heinz-Georg Binder in 1985 , Hartmut Löwe in 1994 , Peter Krug in 2003 , Martin Dutzmann in 2008 , Sigurd Rink in 2014 and Bernhard Felmberg in 2020 .
This had been preceded by confidential exploratory talks about future military chaplaincy since the early 1950s. They took place with disapproval from the circles around Martin Niemöller , as they were connected with rearming. The "Committee for Questions of the Development of a Military Pastoral Care in Any German Armed Forces" formed by the EKD Council rejected an "exemte" military pastoral care in its first meeting on October 13, 1953. Based on the experiences of the earlier practice of a military church subordinate to the state and the state abuse of pastoral care in the two world wars, the treaty declared military pastoral care to be independent of state influence. The state should only provide the organizational and financial framework. The special thing about the contract was u. a. that for the first time the EKD and not one of its member churches expressed a cooperative understanding of state and church.
The military chaplaincy was considered an important instrument for pastoral care and ecclesiastical attainment of the soldiers as well as to strengthen the morale of the troops. From the point of view of the church and the state, the contractual regulation of 1957 has proven its worth.
The Protestant churches of the GDR probably also joined this treaty in 1957 as a protest against state repression. It was not until the conflict was resolved on July 21, 1958, when the GDR churches were guaranteed freedom of conscience and state-protected religious practice that they withdrew from the military chaplaincy contract.
The legal basis for the work of the Catholic military chaplains in the Bundeswehr is the Reich Concordat of 1933.
Web links
- Text of the military chaplaincy contract in the specialist information system for church law
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kristian Buchna A clerical decade? S. 304f, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2014