Confession Synod

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The term confessional synod is used to describe evangelical synodal assemblies that were convened at district, provincial, state or national level by the Confessing Church during the National Socialist period from 1934. They claimed to be the legal governing bodies of the Protestant Church, and thus placed themselves in open opposition to the church authorities and governing bodies determined by German Christianity .

The formation of the Confessional Synods in 1934

The reason for the formation of the confessional synods was not only the interference of the church party, which had dominated the church elections in 1933, the "German Christians" founded by NSDAP supporters, in the organization and constitution of the Protestant churches, such as the coordination of the regional churches, the deposition of Church leaders and the implementation of the Aryan paragraph in the parish law, but above all the impression that the German Christians have deviated from the Bible and the confessional writings as the basis of the Protestant church. The impression that a state of emergency ( status confessionis ) had arisen was intensified with the rally in the Berlin Sports Palace on November 13, 1933, which led to the disintegration of the German Christians and the discrediting of Reich Bishop Ludwig Müller . With the self-designation as the Confessional Synod , the claim to be the legitimate governance of the Church was directly connected.

For the first time, the “Free Reformed Synod”, for which 167 representatives of Reformed parishes in Wuppertal- Barmen met on January 3 and 4, 1934 , claimed that the church should be reorganized according to the denomination. It followed on 18./19. February 1934 the "Free Evangelical Synod" of the Church Province of Rhineland, also in Barmen. The term “confessional synod” was used for the first time on March 16, 1934 by the synod of the Westphalian provincial church in Dortmund .

The first Confessional Synod of the German Evangelical Church took place from May 29th to 31st, 1934 in Wuppertal - Barmen and is therefore also known as the Barmen Confession Synod. In addition to the representatives of the so-called destroyed churches , in which the organs of the Confessing Church were responsible for the election of the synodals, there were also representatives of the so-called intact churches , in which the church government still acted according to the confession and was not synchronized. The 139 synodians jointly adopted the Barmen Theological Declaration as the foundation of the Confessing Church.

The other Confession Synods at the national level

The other confessional synods, for which representatives of all regional churches came together, were - like the first - under the direction of the Westphalian President Karl Koch ( Bad Oeynhausen ).

The second met from October 19 to 20, 1934 in Berlin-Dahlem and passed the so-called church emergency law of Dahlem .

The third (June 4 to 6, 1935 in Augsburg ) confirmed the (First) Provisional Church Administration of the Confessing Church, which was formed in November 1934.

The fourth and final synod of the Reich Confessional Confession took place from February 18 to 22, 1936 in Bad Oeynhausen . It could not reach an agreement on the participation of the Confessing Church in the Reich Church Committees and was heavily burdened by the dissent between members of the Lutheran Council and members from the "destroyed" regional churches. The Oeynhauser Synod elected the Second Provisional Church Government, which was only recognized in the destroyed churches, and also appointed the members of the Imperial Council of Brothers .

Further Confession Synods

At the level of the Evangelical Church of the Old Prussian Union , a total of twelve Confession Synods took place up to 1943, of which the first three ( Barmer Confession Synod , May 29, 1934; Berlin-Dahlem , March 4-5, 1935; Berlin-Steglitz , March 23rd, 1934) September 26, 1935) were still state tolerated. At the second meeting of the fourth synod in Halle (Saale) in 1937, a declaration on the Lord's Supper was adopted, which prepared the Arnoldshain Lord's Supper Theses from 1957 and the Leuenberg Agreement and thus led to communion between Lutherans and Reformed people. The twelfth and last (October 16/17, 1943 in Breslau ) adopted an interpretation of the commandment “You shall not kill” from the Ten Commandments , which opposed the state's euthanasia policy ( Aktion Brandt ).

Among the other Confessional Synods at the provincial level, the Naumburg Synod in Silesia in July 1936 is significant.

Web links

Commons : Confession Synod  - collection of images, videos and audio files

swell

  • Wilhelm Niesel (ed.): To proclamation and order of the church. The Confession Synods of the Evangelical Church of the Old Prussian Union 1934-1943 . Bielefeld 1949
  • Works on the history of the church struggle, 30 volumes, 1958–1975; Publishing house Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen:
    • Vol. 3: Wilhelm Niemöller : The second confessional synod of the German Evangelical Church in Dahlem. Text - documents - reports . Goettingen 1958
    • Vol. 5: Gerhard Niemöller: The first Confessional Synod of the German Evangelical Church in Barmen. Part I: History, Criticism and Significance of the Synod and its Theological Declaration . Göttingen 1959.
    • Vol. 6: Gerhard Niemöller: The first confession synod of the German Evangelical Church in Barmen. Part II: Text - Documents - Reports . Göttingen 1959.
    • Vol. 7: Wilhelm Niemöller: The fourth Confession Synod of the German Evangelical Church in Bad Oeynhausen. Text - documents - reports . Goettingen 1960.
    • Vol. 11: Gerhard Niemöller: The Synod in Halle 1937. The second meeting of the fourth Confessional Synod of the Evangelical Church of the Old Prussian Union. Text - documents - reports . Goettingen 1963.
    • Vol. 20: Wilhelm Niemöller: The third Confessional Synod of the German Evangelical Church in Augsburg. Text - documents - reports . Goettingen 1969.
    • Vol. 23: Wilhelm Niemöller: The Synod of Steglitz. The third Confessional Synod of the Evangelical Church of the Old Prussian Union. History - documents - reports . Goettingen 1970.
    • Vol. 29: Wilhelm Niemöller: The Prussian Synod in Dahlem. The second confessional synod of the Evangelical Church of the Old Prussian Union. History - documents - reports . Göttingen 1975.
  • Joachim Beckmann (Ed.): Letters on the situation of the Evangelical Confession Synod in the Rhineland December 1933 to February 1939 . Neukirchen 1977

literature

  • Jürgen Kampmann: The 1st Westphalian Confession Synod on March 16, 1934 in Dortmund: conception, preparation and implementation . In: Yearbook for Westphalian Church History 88 (1994), pp. 277–409
  • Wilhelm Hüffmeier , Jürgen Kampmann (Ed.): You shouldn't kill God's command in total war. Documentation of the German-Polish symposium from October 3rd to 5th, 2003 in Wrocław to commemorate the last confessional synod of the Evangelical Church of the Old Prussian Union in 1943 in Breslau (= Unio and Confessio 24), Bielefeld 2006
  • Jürgen Kampmann: The joint meeting of the Westphalian Confession Synod and the Rhenish Free Synod on April 29, 1934 in Dortmund , in: Bernd Hey , Volkmar Wittmütz (ed.): Evangelical Church on the Ruhr and Saar. Contributions to Rhenish and Westphalian church history (= Religion in History 16), Bielefeld 2007, pp. 109–161