Institution community
Institution communities are Protestant church communities that were established within an institution called an "institution". Usually these are diaconal care facilities such as hospitals, old people's homes or residential facilities for people with disabilities. The task of the community of the institution is to provide pastoral care for a group of people who are excluded from general social life for a long or long period of time. Historically, the institutions of prison chaplaincy and military chaplaincy were also part of the institutional communities; today they are a joint task of the state and religious communities .
In the Protestant regional churches in Germany , the establishment of institutional congregations is regulated in the respective regional church law, whereby there is a wide range in the specific design. As a rule, institutional congregations are established by a legal act by the respective church leadership in which the area of activity of the congregation, the structure of the congregation and the congregation members are defined. Usually all Protestant persons who live permanently within the facility belong to an institution community, but in some cases also all employees, regardless of their place of residence .
literature
- Herbert Frost: structural problems of the Protestant church constitution. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1972, pp. 134-138.