Bernhard Dörries (theologian)

Georg Bernhard Adolf Dörries (born April 25, 1856 in Medebach , † October 13, 1934 in Hanover ) was a German theologian and pastor . He is considered to be a representative of a liberal evangelical piety and, through his writings, took an important position in the theological debates of his time.

Life

Bernhard Dörries was the son

• of the pastor Friedrich August Dörries († 1858), whose father was the master carpenter Joh. Heinrich Christoph Dörries in Hardegsen and his mother the Dor. Eleonore Heering from Göttingen was;
• as well as Minette († 1906), daughter of the businessman Georg Klesser in Aerzen and the Catholic Beata Bornemann from Hamburg .

After Dörries had become a half-orphan at the age of two through the death of his father , he later studied theology at the University of Leipzig and at the University of Göttingen and in Hanover at the local seminary. Influenced by the theology of Albrecht Ritschl , Dörries passed his second theological examination in 1881, before he first worked as an assistant chaplain in Fallingbostel in 1882 , and then in 1883 as a pastor in the rural Gielde .

To promote theological and ecclesiastical progress in the Hanoverian regional church, Dörries co-founded the organization Scientific Preachers ' Association in 1885 , and later also the Friends of Evangelical Freedom .

In 1888 Dörries married Bertha, the daughter of superintendent Herm, in Sankt Goar . Rehmann in St. Goar and Bertha Heymer from Rheydt . With his wife Dörries had three sons and two daughters, including Hermann Dörries, who would later be church historian and Göttingen lecturer, who was born in 1895, and Bernhard Dörries, who would later be a painter and Berlin lecturer, who was born in Hanover in 1898 .

The surroundings of the later Petrikirche , seen here from the barrage at Wolfsgraben with a view of the tram terminus at the horse tower ;
Postcard number 8 by Karl F. Wunder , around 1898

Dörries found the financial backers for the construction of the Petrikirche , inaugurated in 1902

In the meantime, Dörries had accepted the pastor's position in 1891 in the Hanover suburb of Kleefeld , which was growing through industrialization , where he won the trust of the workers above all . For example, by founding the “Kleefelder Baugenossenschaft”, he decisively and, above all, sustainably improved their previously poor living conditions . in 1894

Moved by Friedrich Naumann's thoughts , Dörries was temporarily involved as a leader in the Hanoverian National Social Association - despite challenges from his church authorities.

In 1901 Dörries founded the ecclesiastically liberal community newspaper Kirchliche Gegenwart , but also reached much broader circles through his books. With his declaration of catechism he strived for a renewal of the teaching of catechism on the basis of Ritschl's theology, and with his collections of sermons he strove for a concrete openness to the world.

It is thanks to Dörrie's personal commitment that the financial means for the construction of the later Petrikirche could be raised: Because the city of Hanover and in particular the city director Heinrich Tramm wanted to set a special urban development accent on site at the entrance of the residential area planned at the time, the later Philosophenviertel , the church was inaugurated in 1902 according to plans by the architect Eberhard Hillebrand .

During the First World War , Bernhard Dörries took care of the warrior families . In 1917 he was awarded the title of theological doctor by the University of Giessen .

During the Weimar Republic , Dörries met the concerns and doubts of modern man with his writings such as the work Der Glaube an die Welt , published in 1919/1920, and his work The Religion of Everyday Life , published in the year of the height of German hyperinflation . Also in 1923 Dörries, who until then had still been pastor in Kleefeld, retired and retired .

In his last writings, Bernhard Dörries dealt with Karl Barth .

Dörriesplatz

While still alive, Dörries between was Scheidestraße and Kaulbachstraße scale 1902 Place At St. Peter's Church was renamed in 1931 in Dörriesplatz , according to the address book of the city of Hanover from 1960 a "[...] more blessed pastor of the Petri church community ."

portrait

A painting with a portrait of the pastor was - despite the damage to the Petrikirche in the Second World War by the air raids on Hanover - hung in the Church of St. Petri until at least 1959.

Fonts (selection)

• The gospel of the poor. A vintage sermons , 572 pages, 2nd edition, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1899
• Declaration of the Small Catechism D. Martin Luther: A contribution to the reform of the catechism teaching , in Gothic script , 3 volumes in different editions, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht:
  • Part 1: The ten commandments , 3rd, revised edition, 1926 table of contents
  • Part 2: Faith , 6th, revised edition, 1920; contents
  • Part 3: The Our Father and the Sacraments , 132 pages, 1st and 2nd edition, table of contents
• The message of joy. A vintage of gospel sermons by Bernhard Dörries, pastor , 535 pages, 2nd revised edition, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1907
• The Voigts system. The job of the pastor and the Traub case. Lecture , Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1912
• 111 sentences about Christianity and war , 11 pages, also printed in Die Tat / Tat-Flugschriften , issue 26, part of the surviving World War II collection of the German library in Leipzig , Jena: Diederichs, 1918
• Faith in the World , 198 pages in the series Die Blaue Bücher , Königstein im Taunus; Leipzig: Langewiesche, [1919]
• Jesus (= the library of the adult education center , vol. 42), Bielefeld; Leipzig: Velhagen & Klasing, 1922
• The religion of everyday life. Christianity is only partially understood. It still has its greatest possibilities ahead of it , 6. – 15. A thousand in the series The blue books , Königstein: Langewiesche, 1924
• The will to live. A new year of sermons , 364 pages, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1924
• The demand of the day , with a book by Wilhelm Geißler , Rudolstadt: Greifen-Verlag, 1926
• The distant and the near god. An examination of the theology of Karl Barth (= Library of the Christian World , Vol. [19]), Gotha: L. Klotz, 1927
• At the crossroads. A word on Karl Barth's dogmatics , Gotha: L. Klotz, 1928

literature

• Otto Lübs, Bernhard Dörries : Kleefeld and his church. 1902-1927. For the 25th anniversary of the Petrikirche , 60 pages with images, printed in Hanover: Stephansstift , 1927
• W. Brothers: Pastor Dörries-Klopf. In: Hannoverscher Kurier from October 19, 1934
• Religion in the past and present. Concise dictionary for theology and religious studies

Web links

Commons : Bernhard Dörries  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

1. ↑ Notwithstanding this, in the German biography (see there) as a marginal note “D. theol. ( Marburg ) ”.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} Karl-Friedrich Oppermann : Dörries, (2) Georg Bernhard Adolf. In: Dirk Böttcher, Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein, Hugo Thielen: Hannoversches Biographisches Lexikon . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2002, ISBN 3-87706-706-9 , p. 97.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m} Philipp Meyer : Dörries, Georg Bernhard Adolf. In: Neue Deutsche Biographie , Vol. 4 (1959), p. 37 f .; on-line
3. ^ Hugo Thielen : Dörries, (1) Bernhard. In: Hannoversches Biographisches Lexikon , p. 97
4. ↑ Compare the authority data set for the building cooperative at the German National Library GND 5306187-1
5. ↑ ^{a b} Birte Rogacki-Thiemann: Petrikirche . In: Wolfgang Puschmann (Ed.): Hanover's churches. 140 churches in and around town. Verlag des Ludwig-Harms-Haus, Hannover 2015, ISBN 978-3-937301-35-8 , p. 72f.
6. ↑ Helmut Zimmermann : Dörriesplatz . In: ders .: The street names of the state capital Hanover , Verlag Hahnsche Buchhandlung, Hanover 1992, ISBN 3-7752-6120-6 , p. 62