Federation of Evangelical Reformed Churches in Germany

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The Federation of Evangelical Reformed Churches in Germany (not to be confused with the Reformed Federation founded in 1884 , which is the umbrella organization of all Reformed churches and communities in Germany) , is a loose association of independent Reformed churches or communities that are not one of the member churches of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) belong.

In 1960 the Bund became an "associated member" of the Evangelical Church in Germany, d. In other words , it is not a formal member because it is not a regional church , but works closely with the EKD and its member churches in many areas.

Members

The following Reformed churches or parishes belong to the Federation:

history

The federal government was founded as a federal free ev.-ref. German municipalities in Leipzig in 1928. It emerged from the remnants of the Confederation ev.-ref. Founded in 1703 . Churches in Lower Saxony and Reformed parishes in Hamburg, Dresden and Leipzig.

While the independence of the individual communities was to continue, the aim was at the same time to have a common representation in Protestant Germany and to be able to regulate other common matters. In 1928 the reformed congregations from Hanau joined the federation.

The independent Reformed congregations, scattered all over Germany, wanted to work more closely together and therefore founded the federation alongside the "Evangelical Reformed Church of the Province of Hanover", which was founded in 1882 and is today an Evangelical Reformed Church , which is a regional church and thus a member church of the EKD.

In 1932 the Ref. Synod in Bavaria (from 1949 Ev. Ref. Church in Bavaria ) and its parishes became a member of the Federation, which at the same time changed its name to Bund ev.-ref. Churches in Germany changed. In 1966 the community in Bützow / Mecklenburg joined the federal government, in 1979 the reformed community Munich II , a new establishment. After the municipalities in the GDR no longer belonged to the federal government, the name was changed to Bund ev.-ref. Churches in the Federal Republic of Germany . In 1986 the federal government represented 27,000 parishioners in 14 parishes.

According to the order of 1976, the federal government is a "synodal parent church" that its members "includes together into a community, the common and mutual responsibility perceives" .

In 1989 the Evangelical Reformed Church in Bavaria left the Federation and joined the Evangelical Reformed Church in northwest Germany as the 11th Synodal Association. This enlarged church was therefore called "Evangelical Reformed Church - Synod of Evangelical Reformed Churches in Bavaria and Northwest Germany" until the end of 2009 (today only "Evangelical Reformed Church").

In 1993, the Reformed congregations in Bützow (Mecklenburg) and Leipzig with the subsidiary congregation Chemnitz, which had now been established and became independent in 1994, and in 1996 the Walloon-Dutch congregation in Hanau left the federal government and joined the Evangelical Reformed Church . Thus in 2005 only six municipalities with 13,000 members belonged to the federal government.

In 2012 the Reformed congregations in Braunschweig and Hamburg also joined the Evangelical Reformed Church, and in 2013 the congregation in Göttingen also followed. Thus, the federal government currently only consists of the Reformed communities of Bückeburg, Stadthagen and Dresden. As a result, the total number of members of the federation fell from 11,000 to 1,500 now.

Federal government

The federal government has a chairman. This office is held by a representative of the member churches or congregations for a specified period.

Chairwoman of the Federation

  • 1927–1929: Rudolf Mühlhausen, Leipzig
  • 1929–1964: Theodor Kamlah, Göttingen
  • 1964–1972: Johann Tibbe, Göttingen
  • 1972–1980: Hans-Joachim Pitsch, Göttingen
  • 1980–1989: Hermann Keller, Hamburg
  • 1989–1994: Ulrich Falkenrot, Braunschweig
  • 1994–1998: Rolf Ehlenbröker, Hamburg
  • 1998–2006: Sabine Dressler-Kromminga, Braunschweig
  • 2006–2012: Ingo Sengebusch, Hamburg
  • 2012– 0000: Klaus Vesting, Dresden

Hymn books

The congregations of the Federation have been singing from the Evangelical Reformed Church's edition of the Evangelical Hymnbook since 1996 .

Numerous hymn books were in use earlier. In some cases each congregation had its own hymn book. Here is a selection of hymn books that were in use in the federal parishes:

  • Hymn book for evangelical-reformed congregations , edited by the consistories of the evangelical-reformed congregations in Dresden and Leipzig; Leipzig, 1887
  • Church hymn book for the Reformed community in Göttingen ; the songs are taken from the Protestant church hymn book for the consistorial district of Cassel ; Cassel, 1907
  • Evangelical hymn book - edition for the Evangelical Reformed Church in Bavaria; a special edition of the Evangelical Hymnal for Rhineland and Westphalia (Dortmund, 1929) with the songs of the German Evangelical Hymn
  • Evangelical Church Hymns - Edition for the Evangelical Reformed Congregations with psalms, selected after a resolution of the 4th General Convention of Reformed Preachers in the GDR and Greater Berlin on October 24, 1951; Berlin

literature

  • Hans-Joachim Pitsch: Art. Bund ev.-ref. Churches in the Federal Republic of Germany. In: Evangelisches Kirchenlexikon , 3rd ed., Vol. 1 (1986), Sp. 576f.

Web links

Commons : Church building of the Federation of Evangelical Reformed Churches in Germany  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ^ Community structure
  2. ^ Founding members of the Federation were the Reformed communities in Braunschweig, Bückeburg, Dresden, Göttingen, Hamburg, Leipzig and Stadthagen.
  3. ↑ It was about the parishes of Bayreuth, Erlangen, Grönenbach , Herbishofen , Marienheim , Munich [I], Nuremberg and Schwabach.
  4. ^ Pitsch, 576.
  5. ↑ New churches are added. Evangelical Reformed Church, archived from the original on January 15, 2016 ; Retrieved December 18, 2012 .
  6. ↑ Dramatic changes in the church federation Ev.-ref. Communities. (PDF; 87 kB) Congregational letter of the Evangelical Reformed Congregation Dresden, archived from the original on January 9, 2016 ; Retrieved December 18, 2012 .