Old Apostolic Congregation

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The Old Apostolic Congregation (AAG) was a very small, chiliastic church community. It emerged as a split from the New Apostolic Church at the time when Friedrich Krebs was head of it as Chief Apostle . Some of the faithful resisted the growing tendency in the decade from 1890 to 1900 to emphasize the apostolic office more and more and to give it absolute priority over the other offices. They considered this to be an inadmissible innovation and, by choosing a name, expressed their claim to remain true to the "old" faith in an old-apostolic way.

Emergence

The central figure in the development of the Old Apostolic Congregation (AAG) was Friedrich Strube, who was sealed within the General Christian Apostolic Mission (ACAM) in 1865 in Stapelburg in the Harz Mountains (now part of Ilsenburg ) .

After the division of the early New Apostolic movement in 1878 into a branch under the prophet Geyer and one under the direction of the apostle Prussia, Strube followed the apostle Prussia and his elder Krebs, like almost all members of the Harz communities.

On July 25, 1879, Strube was appointed a priest in Braunschweig . A short time later he was assigned the character of the prophet, he subsequently served as a so-called "priest-prophet" under Apostle Menkhoff, after 1881 under Krebs, who had been called to be an apostle, in Stapelburg.

In the years that followed, conflicts arose between him and Krebs; In particular, the role of the prophet in the appointment and ordination of new ecclesiastical officials were a matter of conflict, because Strube took the position that the apostle had to bow to the prophet when calling new officials. Krebs, on the other hand, argued that the apostle did not have to follow the prophet in the end, but that the apostolic office was overriding the prophet in all points. After Strube was no longer able to bow to apostolic authority, he was suspended and left the young New Apostolic Church.

development

By the end of the 1890s at the latest, a number of ministers who had been suspended by Chief Apostle Krebs joined forces with Strube, including the so-called "Tribe Prophet" August Hugo from Bielefeld, who was also suspended by Krebs in 1898. He was present at the call of Apostle van Bemmel in the Netherlands and was already involved in the conflicts within the Hersteld Apostolische Zendingkerk regarding the successor to Apostle Schwarz .

In 1898 Robert Geyer joined Strube and his Old Apostolic Congregation. Apostle Luitsen Hoekstra, called and singled out for North America in 1897, returned to the Netherlands a few years later and also joined the community; but only for a short time, because after a short time he returned to the Dutch Reformed Church after conflicts in the AAG.

De AAG had demonstrably (sometimes very small) communities in Berlin, Braunschweig, Bielefeld, Frankfurt am Main, Griesheim, Hamburg, Stapelburg, Wernechen and Zeulenroda.

Robert Geyer established contact with the General Christian Apostolic Mission in 1908/09, whereupon a part of the Old Apostolic Congregation joined the ACAM.

The number of followers of the Old Apostolic Congregation fell in the years that followed. Churches closed. Ultimately, only the community in Stapelburg existed. Shortly after the Second World War, the Old Apostolic Congregation had fewer than 40 members. In 1950 it was banned by the GDR . The Old Apostolic Congregation dissolved.

literature

  • Johannes Albrecht Schröter: The Catholic Apostolic Congregations in Germany and the "Geyer Case" . Tectum Verlag, Marburg, 3rd edition 2004, ISBN 3-89608-814-9 .
  • Helmut Obst: Apostles and prophets of the modern age . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2000, ISBN 3-525-55438-9 .
  • Helmut Obst: New Apostolic Church - the exclusive end-time church? (= Apologetic Topics , Vol. 8). Railway, Neunkirchen-Vluyn 1996, ISBN 3-7615-4945-8 .