Bern Synodus

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Order as pastors and preachers zuo instead and land Bern in empty and live soellen keep [...] (1532)

Bern Synodus is the abbreviation for the first Protestant order of preachers in the city ​​and republic of Bern . Its title is order as pastor and preacher zuo statt und land Bern in Leer und Leben soellen, with a regular report of Christ and the sacraments . Adopted by a synod in January 1532 and approved by the city council, it became the model for many Reformed church orders .

Emergence

As a result of the Bern disputation in January 1528, the Reformation was accepted in Bern. It turned out to be difficult to carry out because, on the one hand, especially in the Bernese Oberland, sympathy for the Roman Catholic Church was still great and, on the other hand, the Anabaptists were pushing for a more radical Reformation. A first synod of the Bernese pastors in September 1530 was intended primarily to enforce the Reformation mandate in the countryside. Due to the defeat in the Second Kappel War in October 1531, the Reformation movement in Switzerland got into an even more serious crisis. The minster pastor Kaspar Megander attacked the city authorities in a harsh sermon because of the insufficient support of Zurich and was therefore suspended by the city council.

The second synod took place in this tense situation. January 1532. The leaders of the Bern Reformation, Berchtold Haller and Franz Kolb , wanted the preachers to be more independent from the council, but their health was not up to date. The unexpected visit of the Strasbourg reformer Wolfgang Capito brought a turning point. With the approval of the Council, Capito drafted 16 articles, to which the Synod added 28. Today's research assumes that they too were largely designed by Capito. Immediately after their adoption by the synod, they were confirmed by the council and printed by Hieronymus Froben in Basel. In March 1532 a Latin translation also appeared in Basel.

content

The 44 articles of Synodus primarily contain instructions on how to conduct the ministry. In addition to stipulating the correct doctrine (e.g. demarcation from Roman Catholic positions), instructions for an exemplary life predominate. With its upgrading of pastoral care and spiritual practice, the Synodus takes up impulses from the Devotio moderna . On the question of the Lord's Supper , he supports Ulrich Zwingli's view of a spiritual presence of Christ, but strongly devalues ​​the reception of the sacraments compared to faith.

Aftermath

Synodus was largely ignored in the confessional age . It was only Pietism who valued him again because of his inward piety. Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf included it as the only Reformed creed in the foundations of the Moravian Brethren .

The constitution of the Evangelical Reformed Regional Church of the Canton of Bern from 1946 counts the Synod, along with the Reformation decree of February 7, 1528 and the ten theses of the Bern Disputation, to the historical basis of the regional church (Art. 1.4).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans Rudolf Lavater: The "Improvement of the Reformation" in Bern . In: GW Locher: Der Berner Synodus , 2nd vol., 78–82.
  2. ^ GW Locher: Der Berner Synodus , 2nd vol., Pp. 20-23.
  3. ^ Ernst Saxer: Zinzendorf and the Bern Synodus . In: Unitas Fratrum 29/30 (1991), pp. 157-174.

expenditure

  • Bernese Synodus: Order as the pastors and preachers in the place and country ... New edition 1718 Google-books .
  • Bern Synod with the closing speeches of the Bern disputation and the Reformation mandate (translated by Markus Bieler), Bern 1978 (documents of the Bern Reformation).
  • Hans-Georg vom Berg: Bern Synodus. Order of how the pastors and preachers in the city and countryside of Bern should behave in teaching and life. With a further account of Christ and the sacraments. Resolved at the synod, met there on the 9th day in January 1532 (original text and New High German translation). In: The Bern Synodus of 1532. Edition and treatises on the anniversary year 1982. 1st vol .: Edition . Neukirchen-Vluyn 1984, pp. 16-167.

literature