Bremen church history

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Bremen had been the seat of a missionary diocese founded by Charlemagne since 787/88 and the center of the missionary activities of the Anglo-Saxon Bishop Willehad . After the last Saxon uprising at the beginning of the 9th century, Bremen became a regular diocese under Bishop Willerich . After Ansgar was expelled from Hamburg by the Danish Vikings , Bremen became the seat of a missionary archbishopric with the task of proselytizing Scandinavia. As a result of the Reformation , the city became predominantly Protestant, initially Lutheran, and then Calvinist reformed in the “Second Reformation” . However, since 1538/39, services of a growing Lutheran congregation took place again in the cathedral. Since the end of the Thirty Years' War , Catholic masses have also been celebrated under the protection of the Imperial Commissioner and later Imperial Resident , initially in an old cathedral curia or in the rented house of the Imperial Resident, and only in a church again in the 19th century.

Mission Church and Archdiocese

Beginnings

Donor relief from 1512 with Charlemagne and Bishop Willehad , today the organ gallery of Bremen Cathedral

There are two different documents for the establishment of the Diocese of Bremen , which they date once to the year 787 and once to 788 with largely the same extent of the district. At first it was subordinate to the Archdiocese of Cologne . Wilhad died on November 8th, 789 and in 792 the last uprising of the Saxons destroyed Willehad's mission.

Still under Charlemagne, the diocese was re-established in 805 with Bishop Willerich , who built the first stone church in Bremen. His successor Leuderich died on August 23, 845. In the same year the Vikings destroyed the Hammaburg , sitting one of Louis the Pious  founded and 831 by Pope Gregory IV. Operated Missions - Archdiocese , predecessor of the Archdiocese of Hamburg .

Personal union with the Archdiocese of Hamburg

In 848 the synod of Mainz decided to assign the vacant diocese of Bremen to the escaped Archbishop of Hamburg Ansgar . This installation sparked violent protests from Archbishop Hilduin of Cologne. His successor Gunthar von Köln also resisted ceding the diocese to the church province of Hamburg. It was not until 870 that Pope Nicholas I determined that the Diocese of Bremen should be transferred to the Archdiocese of Hamburg. Rimbert , Ansgar's successor since 865, now referred to himself as Archbishop of Bremen.

Archdiocese of Hamburg-Bremen

Archbishop Adalgar obtained 905 from Pope Sergius III. Another confirmation of the amalgamation, but with the stipulation that the Archdiocese does not receive any suffragans . Pope Leo IX however, extended the archdiocese to the Arctic Ocean in 1053. But in 1104 Bremen-Hamburg lost most of its suffragans with the creation of an independent church province of Lund . In the same century, the Archdiocese of Lund was divided: in 1158, the Archdiocese of Nidaros was created for Norway including the North Atlantic Islands. Sweden got its own archbishopric in 1164 , which took its seat in Uppsala in 1179 .

Archdiocese of Bremen

Seal of the Bremen cathedral chapter in the 14th century.

After Henry the Lion was ousted by Friedrich Barbarossa in the Gelnhauser deed of 1180 , Denmark under Waldemar II. Gained control of Hamburg in 1201. This weakened the position of the Hamburg cathedral chapter , so that the elections for bishops in 1210 ( Gerhard I ) and 1219 ( Gerhard II ) were only carried out by the Bremen cathedral chapter, excluding it. At Christmas 1223 Pope Honorius III finished. the chapter dispute . Bremen became the sole seat of the archbishop. The Hamburg cathedral chapter accepted this and was to send the provost , the dean and the scholaster to Bremen for the election of bishops .

Social origin of the archbishops

Most of Bremen's archbishops of the High and Late Middle Ages belonged to the north-west German nobility . However, two came from bourgeois families in the city of Bremen: Burchard Grelle officiated from 1327 to 1344, Johann III. Rode of Wale from 1497 to 1511.

Parishes

After Archbishop Unwan erected the St. Vitus Church , today the Church of Our Lady , it soon became the parish church for the market settlement growing next to the Domburg .

Archbishop Adalbert II moved the Wilhadistift to the Stephaniberg (possibly no longer occupied by a congregation) in 1139 and granted the church, which Bremen citizens had promised to build there , the parish rights for the residents of Bremen and for the villages of Utbremen and Walle .

At the request of the citizens and at the instigation of Pope Gregory IX. In 1229, Archbishop Gerhard II of Bremen re-established the parish boundaries , creating the new parishes of St. Ansgarii and St. Martini in addition to the Liebfrauenparrei . Only a few walls of the new parish churches, including St. Ansgarii as a collegiate church , stood at this time.

In the 14th century, the St. Wilhadi Church, located southwest of the cathedral (today about the southern corner of the citizenry ), became a parish church for lay people living in the cathedral freedom.

Monasteries

Urban area and land ownership in Bremen

According to Adam von Bremen , Archbishop Adalbert I founded three provosts , i.e. monasteries , around 1050 :
  • St. Wilhadi initially owned a chapel near the cathedral. The monastery moved to St. Stephen's Hill in 1139 and became the spiritual sponsor of the parish church of St. Stephani, which was then built there. Its first seat was transferred to the Ansgari monastery in 1187 and only came into the care of the cathedral chapter in 1221 .
  • St. Stephani on the dune hill north-west of the market settlement of Bremen, which was then named after him, was no longer mentioned as a congregation in 1139.
  • The first St. Pauli Propstei , which probably did not last long, because at the beginning of 1139 a monastery was founded again at the still existing St. Pauls Chapel on a dune hill southeast of the cathedral dune. The new Paulskloster was occupied by Benedictines and became the economic center of the St. Pauli suburb named after him, today's Ostertorviertel . The monastery buildings were demolished as early as 1523, in agreement between the abbot, who wanted to live under the protection of the city ​​fortifications , and the city, who wanted to deny any besiegers the opportunity to entrench themselves in the walls. There were fears that the archbishop would take military action because of the city's openness to the Reformation. Organizationally, the Paulskloster continued until the death of its last abbot.
  • A nunnery used the Michaeliskapelle in front of the Ansgaritor in the 12th century , but later moved to Bergedorf near Ganderkesee. The religious affiliation is unknown.
Around 1225, both Dominicans and Franciscans settled in Bremen.

Erzstift Bremen - outside the urban area

- in selection -

  • The Cistercian monastery Lilienthal was founded in 1232 and made a contribution to the development of the Wümmeniederung . In 1552 the nuns joined the Reformation. In 1646 the monastery was dissolved by the Swedish administration of the archbishopric.
  • The Marie monastery Osterholz was from its inception from 1181 to 1202 probably a double monastery for Benedictine and Benedictine, then a pure nunnery. Most of his land was on the Geest . From around 1538 to 1550 some of the nuns committed themselves to the Reformation, others to the Roman Church. It was then purely Protestant, Catholic from 1630 to 1633 and then Protestant again until it was dissolved in 1650.
  • The Neuenwalde Benedictine monastery was initially founded in Midlum , but eventually relocated to Neuenwalde due to hostility from the Wursten farmers . In 1571 it joined the Reformation. In 1683 it was bought by King Charles XI. Donated by Sweden to the knighthood of the Duchy of Bremen and has served as a women's monastery ever since . Large parts are now used as an evangelical education center Bad Bederkesa due to a cooperation agreement .

reformation

Heinrich von Zütphen

On November 9, 1522, the expelled Augustinian monk Heinrich von Zütphen held the first Reformation sermon in Bremen in a chapel of St. Ansgarii Church . Thereupon the canons submitted a complaint to Archbishop Christoph von Braunschweig-Lüneburg . This demanded the extradition of Zütphens, but met resistance from the city council and the citizens. An assembly of estates and a provincial synod were called to clarify the case, but they were unsuccessful. From 1524, Protestant preachers were appointed to the parish churches in addition to the Catholic priests. Catholic masses were banned in the parish churches in the city in 1525, in the rural areas in 1527 and in the monasteries in 1528.

The Paulskloster had already been demolished in 1523, but organizationally continued until the death of the last abbot. The other two monasteries were still inhabited by monks (actually even continued to hold fairs on a small scale), but the St. Catherine's Monastery was in 1528 for the Latin School, deconsecrated his church and the armory , and the St. John's Abbey in 1530 with the consent of the monks hospital and madhouse.

In 1534 a church order approved by Luther was introduced.

The cathedral had already been closed by the cathedral chapter in 1532 after the committee of 104 men, who opposed the dominance of the merchants, interrupted the mass on Palm Sunday and forced a Lutheran service. After 15 years, the cathedral chapter in 1547 lifted the closure on again and certain at the proposal of Seniors, Count Christoph von Oldenburg , the of Overijssel originating Albert Rizäus Hardenberg for preacher. He turned out to be a radical reformist, which resulted in disputes between Lutherans and followers of Melanchthon . Finally, Hardenberg was expelled from the city on February 18, 1561. He was supported by the majority of the citizens, the mayor Daniel von Büren (d. J.) and some councilors. The majority of the council wanted to take action against this, but a civil movement defended it in January 1562. This led to numerous opponents of Hardenberg leaving the city. The religiously motivated conflicts in Bremen dealt with district assemblies of the Lower Saxon Reichskreis , the Reichskammergericht and the Hanseatic League . The latter even decided in 1563 to ban Bremen, i.e. to exclude the city from the city alliance, which was already dominated by Lutherans at the time. In 1576 Bremen was re-admitted to the Hanseatic League. In the city, the Reformed Confession predominated.

The Commandery of the Teutonic Order passed to the city in 1564.

Georg von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel , elected Archbishop of Bremen and Bishop of Verden in 1558 , was open to the Reformation and in 1563 introduced the Lutheran Bremen church order in the Diocese of Verden . From 1566, Lutherans were elected archbishops by the Bremen cathedral chapter. However - just as Georg had already acted in part with the Reformation, his successor, Heinrich von Sachsen-Lauenburg , did not act solely with the Reformation.

Reformed Bremen official church

Last Supper relief from 1430 from the Ansgari Church , since 1582 without faces

In the so-called “second Reformation” in 1581, Bremen joined Philipp Melanchton's theological direction , which was less rigid than Calvin's teaching , but nevertheless led the city into the Reformed camp and again isolated it from its surroundings. Fourteen years later, the city received a new church order based on the German Reformed form ( Consensus Bremensis ), and the Heidelberg Catechism was introduced around 1600 . The city ​​also took part in the Dordrecht Synod in 1618/19, but without adopting its resolutions or canceling the Augsburg Confession . The four now reformed parishes within the walls of the city were responsible for all official ecclesiastical acts. The theologian Christoph Pezel , who was called to Bremen in 1582, arranged for all sculptures to be demolished or removed from the churches in Bremen that same year. After the Neustadt had been laid out , the St. Pauli Church was added as the fifth inner-city parish in 1682 .

For the Rembertigemeinde , at that time not part of the urban area, but rather the rural area of ​​Bremen, there was an extraordinary denominational regulation. In the parish founded in 1596, Reformed pastors from Bremen looked after both the Reformed believers from the Pagentorn suburb and the Lutheran believers from Hastedt and Schwachhausen until 1830 .

Bremen city parishes when the Reformation was introduced:

City of Bremen country parishes when the Reformation was introduced:

Johanneskirche in Arsten

Seehausen belonged politically to the city of Bremen's Niedervieland, but the St. Jacobi parish , founded after 1234, was under the patronage of the Counts of Hoya and later of the Electorate of Braunschweig-Lüneburg . Therefore it became Lutheran a little later and never reformed .

After the city of Bremen lost territory to the first Swedish, then Brunswick-Lüneburg duchy of Bremen , the Bremen council and the Bremen ministry (religious authority) were still involved in the supervision of the reformed parishes there until the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss 1803.

Important reformed and united parishes in Bremen that were founded later:

Lutheran cathedral parish

Altar from 1694/96 in the Lutheran St. Peter's Cathedral based on the model of the papal altar in the Roman St. Peter's Church

From 1639 the practice of the Lutheran creed was allowed after the cathedral was reopened for (Lutheran) church services in 1638. However, the cathedral did not have the status of a parish church. Almost all Lutherans also belonged to the Reformed parish in the district in which they lived. Since in Bremen, as in many other cities, the resident population had a birth deficit, which was made up by immigration from the surrounding area, around 1800 around 25,000 Lutherans lived in the walls of the city alongside only 13,000 Reformed.

Equality and amalgamation

After the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss 1803, the cathedral was incorporated into the city. Because the Reformed parishes did not want to miss the income from the administration fees of the Lutherans, it was not until 1810 that the cathedral was recognized as a parish church. As Pastor primarius was Johann David Nicolai used. However, the cathedral parish only achieved full equality in 1830, by a majority decision of the Bremen Senate and against the vote of the mayor Johann Smidt . In the Bremen church dispute of 1840 and 1844/45 between theological rationalist pastors and the predominantly conservative Reformed pastors in Bremen there was still a clear majority of the Orthodox clergy. However, the freedom of the church in Bremen was clearly confirmed by the Bremen Senate.

After 1845, the Reformed creed was lost more and more when the congregations sometimes also called Lutheran preachers. New congregations emerged and were no longer differentiated between “Lutheran” and “Reformed”. In parts of Bremen-Nord, which were part of Bremen at the time of the Reformation, but were Swedish from 1660 and then Hanover, there are still some competing Evangelical Lutheran and Evangelical Reformed congregations today.

Since the borders of the parish districts were dissolved in 1860, every Protestant Bremen resident can decide which congregation they want to belong to, regardless of their place of residence. The individual communities were given a far-reaching right of self-determination. After the First World War , the Bremen Evangelical Church received a new church constitution , according to which the church committee of the Bremen Evangelical Church elected by the Kirchentag (Synod) is headed by a president who is not a theologian. As a theologian, he is supported by the "secretary of the church committee" (no bishop or similar). During the church struggle in the time of National Socialism , a regional bishop appointed by the Reich bishop was at the head of the regional church from 1934 until the suspension in 1941 . After 1945 the legal status of 1920 was restored.

Bremerhaven

In addition to the municipalities in Bremen, the United Protestant Church at the Mayor Smidt Memorial Church in Bremerhaven also belongs to the Bremen Evangelical Church . The former urban area of ​​the former Hanoverian city of Wesermünde , which today belongs to Bremerhaven , remained in the area of ​​the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover .

Catholic Church

From 1648 there was again Catholic life in Bremen . The Jesuit Johannes Zweenbrüggen began with Catholic services. Later, Catholics in Bremen were able to take part in the services in the house of the imperial resident, which the two Jesuits read as the resident's "house chaplain". They took care of the Catholic servants in Bremen a little outside the provisions of the Peace of Westphalia . Catholics could only acquire citizenship if they had a job that did not exist in Bremen. But it was not until 1807 that the Catholic Church in Bremen was recognized as having equal rights with the Lutheran and Reformed Churches. With the transfer of the former Franciscan Church of St. Johann in 1816, the community received its own church again and inaugurated it in 1823, after the floor had been raised by 3 meters due to the Weser floods. In 1819 the adjoining St. Johannis School started operations. In 1920 the parish became a corporation under public law and in 1931 Bremen became the seat of a deanery of the Osnabrück diocese . The deaneries Bremen-Nord and Bremerhaven belong to the diocese of Hildesheim . In 2002, the Birgittenkloster Bremen was founded, the first monastery in the city since the Middle Ages. With 11.5% (as of 2015), Catholics are the second largest religious community in the Bremen population. It consists of members from around 120 nations.

Free Churches

From the middle of the 19th century, free-church congregations also emerged in Bremen. A Baptist congregation has existed in Bremen since 1845. At that time Johann Gerhard Oncken baptized 10 people in the Weser and thus founded the Baptist church work in the Hanseatic city. The Bremen Baptists are now divided into six autonomous congregations in Bremen and Bremerhaven with a total of approx. 1100 baptized members.

In 1849, in addition to the Baptists, a Methodist congregation was founded , who developed a strong missionary activity from Bremen. In the course of the 20th century, other free churches such as the Elim Congregation , the Free Evangelical Congregation , the Church of God , the Mennonites , a congregation in the Mülheim Association , the SELK and the Seventh-day Adventists were added. Some of the free church congregations only came into being after the Second World War. The Bremen Mennonite Congregation, for example, was founded in 1947, the Free Evangelical Congregation (Christ Church) was founded in 1998.

See also

literature

  • Otto Veeck : History of the Reformed Church in Bremen , 1909, available in the reading room of the Bremen State Archives, Sign. D 15 Ag
  • Andreas Röpcke (ed.): Bremen church history in the 19th and 20th centuries. H. M. Hauschild, Bremen 1994, ISBN 3-929902-53-2 .
  • Wilhelm Tacke : Monasteries in Bremen , 2nd edition, Bremen: Temmen, 2005
  • Wilhelm Tacke: St. Johann in Bremen - a history of over 600 years - from the beggar brothers to the provosts . Bremen 2006, ISBN 3-86108-583-6 .
  • Dieter Hägermann , Ulrich Weidinger, Konrad Elmshäuser : Bremen church history in the Middle Ages . H. M. Hauschild, Bremen 2012, ISBN 3897571706 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Documents dated July 13, 787 = RI I n.290d, in: Regesta Imperii Online , (accessed March 1, 2015).
  2. ↑ Documents dated July 14, 788 = RI I n.295, in: Regesta Imperii Online , (accessed on March 1, 2015).
  3. ^ University of Zurich (PL 131 0974D): IV. EPISTOLA SERGII III AD ADALGARIUM HAMBURGENSEM. (Anno 905.) "Bremensem Ecclesiam, et ipsam Hamburgensem Ecclesiam non duas, sed unam esse Ecclesiam"
  4. ↑ Dieter Strauch Medieval Nordic Law up to 1500: a source study , Verl. Walter de Gruyter, 2011 (Google book search) In it: Adam III, 78 (Werner Trillnich p. 430f .; Philipp Jaffe no. 4290, Cu, no. 23, p. 49 ff.) Of January 6, 1053 (cf. Otto May No. 241)
  5. ↑ Bremen document book August 27, 1139 : Archbishop Adalbero (II.) Relocates the Wilhadikapitel to the Stephaniberg and grants the church, which the citizens of Bremen have promised to build there, the parish right within the city for all citizens who live from the Elverici house to Stephaniberg, as well as for the villages of Utbremen and Walle.
  6. ↑ Bremisches Urkundenbuch, Vol. I.1:
  7. ↑ Bremisches Urkundenbuch Vol. I.2: Arbitration between Ansgari chapter and Dompropst from 1221 (with German summary)
  8. ↑ Bremisches Urkundenbuch Vol. I.1 No. 30 (pp. 33–35): Archbishop Albero confirms the establishment of the Paulskloster through the foundation of his recently deceased relative Thrubertus. (with German summary)
  9. ↑ Peter Schomburg: The Bremer Ostertorvorstadt in its historical-topographical development in: Bremisches Jahrbuch ›46th Volume (1959), p. 255 ff.
  10. ↑ Thomas Hill: The city and its edge , Stadtforchsung series , Böhlau-Verlag 2008, ISBN 978-3-412-24105-6 , p. 180
  11. ^ Adolf E. Hofmeister / Ulrich Faust, The women's monasteries in Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein and Bremen , Germania Benedictina XI, St. Ottilien 1984, p. 62 ff. Bergedorf
  12. ↑ Bremisches Jahrbuch ›2nd volume (1866)› V. On the history of the knights of the Teutonic Order ›2) Die Deutschherren-Commende zu Bremen› p. 189
  13. ↑ a b Catholic Community Association in Bremen, The Reformation (1522-1610)
  14. ^ East Frisian landscape, Albert (Rizaeus) HARDENBERG
  15. ↑ Friedrich Seven, Dutch influences from the 1st and 2nd Reformation in Bremen , in: Bremen and the Netherlands, describes the development of these theological disputes between Lutherans and "Calvinists" . Yearbook of Wittheit zu Bremen, Bremen 1995/96, pp. 62–68.
  16. ↑ Introduction of the Reformation in Hanseatic cities:
    1523 Danzig
    1524 Magdeburg
    1529 Hamburg
    1530/31 Lübeck
    1531 Rostock
    1531 Soest
  17. ^ Church + KIWI: Parish Kirchlinteln Kirchgemeinde Wittlohe ( Memento from April 10, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  18. ↑ Friedrich Seven: Dutch Influences on the 1st and 2nd Reformation in Bremen. In: Bremen and the Netherlands , 1995/96 yearbook of Wittheit zu Bremen, Bremen 1997, p. 68.
  19. ↑ See Herbert Schwarzwälder, the large Bremen Lexicon
  20. ↑ Hans-Christoph Hoffmann: The preservation of St. Petri Cathedral in Bremen in the 19th century , supplements to the yearbook of Wittheit zu Bremen / II, edited by Gerold Wefer and Hans Kloft, copyright and publisher: Die Wittheit zu Bremen 2007, Verlag HM Hauschil GmbH, Bremen, ISBN 978-3-89757-376-5 , p. 14 Position of the cathedral and the cathedral parish (available in the fund of the Bremen State Archives under the signature: Beih. 3 125 Za)
  21. ↑ Evangelical Church in Germany - Church membership numbers as of December 31 , 2015 EKD January 2017