Christoph Kukat

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Christoph Kukat

Christoph Kukat , lit. Kristupas Kukaitis (born December 31, 1844 in Groß Wersmeningken, Pillkallen district , East Prussia, today: Belkino ; † August 3, 1914 in Tilsit ) was an East Prussian evangelist and penitential preacher .

He founded the East Prussian Evangelical Prayer Association .

Church historical circumstances

As a community movement, German Pietism influenced a large part of the believers in Prussian Lithuania / Lithuania Minor in the 1870s and 1880s . After 1870, Christoph Kukat and other preachers in eastern East Prussia started a religious awakening movement . In addition to the church services, house and community meetings were held. So-called hour holders held Bible celebrations and prayer meetings in private houses.

Live and act

conversion

Christoph Kukat came from a Prussian-Lithuanian farming family. As a 20-year-old soldier he experienced his conversion in Potsdam after he had attended a Christian meeting in a private house, shortly afterwards he was taken to a military hospital and there had witnessed the death of his comrades. At first he adhered to the Klimkenai (lit. Klimkiškiai), the followers of the Lithuanian hour holder Klimkus Grigelaitis. After completing his military service, he then joined believing men in the Pillkallen and Ragnit districts and founded a community with them within the Evangelical Church , whose preacher he became.

The penitential and awakening movement

His impressive penitential sermons gave rise to a growing movement that stretched from all of East Prussia to Memel , Berlin , Rhineland and Westphalia . Between 1,000 and 2,000 people attended the summer garden meetings . After his father's death, he took over his parents' farm near Stallupönen , which had to be managed with outside help due to his extensive travel activities. Kukat did not marry until she was 46 and had two daughters.

Kukat's followers were called Kukatians (lit. Kukaitiškiai) and were Germans and Lithuanians who lived in what was then Prussia . They practiced kneeling prayer and refused choral singing in services . Kukat worked among Lithuanians, Masurians and Germans. The meetings were held in German, Lithuanian or Polish, depending on the language of the audience, and were held by 70 to 80 preachers, of whom about 25 were Lithuanian and 30 each were German and Masurian. The community movement was very popular among the Lithuanians; almost every second belonged to this movement.

The Evangelical Church and the state authorities had a negative view of this revival movement, which many pastors called a sect . Around 1880 the preachers were charged with the government and the district administrators for unauthorized holding of church services. The consistory in Königsberg then banned young people from attending the Kukatsch meetings. Police officers dissolved this if the chairman of the meeting could not prove in writing that the registration was correct. The prayer hour holder Dargys was even sent to Tilsit prison, but was released on the instructions of King Frederick William IV . In 1883, Kukat was invited to hold a meeting in Berlin and reported it to the police. The local police headquarters informed Kaiser Wilhelm I of this, who then expressed the wish to visit Kukat's meeting. He gave instructions to have the service held in the Berlin garrison church . The then head of the St. Chrischona pilgrim mission , Carl Heinrich Rappard , wrote in his travelogue of October 5, 1883: “On September 29, I was in Tulpeningken, where Br. Kukat has a house of prayer that can accommodate about 1000 people. It was crowded. I spoke German, Kukat Lithuanian; Finally, a preacher translated me from German into Lithuanian. Many had also come from Russia, some on foot for 12-24 hours, to attend this meeting. The Russian brothers asked with tears that they might be helped. They have many vacant pastoral posts in Russian Poland and they are not allowed to hold meetings. ... More than 100 people stayed there all night, and the next morning at 6:30 a.m. there was another meeting. They sang songs from the hymnbook until after midnight and at 5 o'clock in the morning you could hear singing again. "

The establishment of the East Prussian Prayer Society

In order to give the movement greater freedom of action in the face of official restrictions and church resistance, Kukat founded the East Prussian Evangelical Prayer Association in Berlin on April 27, 1885 , a pietistic- Lutheran branch of the Protestant community movement, also known as the Evangelical Prayer Association , East Prussian Prayer Association or Prayer Association . This still exists today in western Germany as the Evangelical Lutheran prayer community .

Branch associations were founded in many circles in East Prussia and Kukat was elected president and first travel preacher. The Königsberger Verein was one of the largest of the eight regional church communities with around 300 members; the prayer club of the Ragnit district even had 3,000 members. Individual pastors of the Evangelical Church joined this movement, for example B. Carl Ferdinand Blazejewski , Martin and Fritz Girkon. Only after the First World War did the church open to the prayer club; In the 1920s, celebratory meetings of the branch clubs were held in churches. In the church struggle during the time of National Socialism , the prayer club worked closely with the Confessing Church . Until the outbreak of World War II , preacher Otto Jastremski was a member of the East Prussian Brotherhood and the Confessional Synod .

In 1910 a decision by Kukat led to a split in the prayer clubs: Kukat saw the choral service as a secularization of the clubs, saw them as a hindrance to the club's work and decided against them in the new community regulations. Despite letters from worried brothers, he was unwilling to give in. Since then there have been two directions: the Evangelical Prayer Society (known since 1950) and the (much larger) Evangelical Lutheran Prayer Society .

After Kukat's death in 1914, Gustav Mäder from Berlin took over the management of the association. The subsequent leaders were August Dobat (1927–1932), Richard Kanschat (1932–1956), Wilhelm Dworzack (1956–1971), Martin Singel (1971–1981) and Otto Jastremski (from 1981). After the Second World War , the prayer club spread across Germany through the displaced East Prussians. It has its headquarters in Gelsenkirchen-Erle . In 1950 it was renamed the Evangelical Prayer Society.

Organization and spiritual life

The meetings were called services . The traveling brothers who were ordained by Kukat according to a fixed liturgy were called preachers . There were also worshipers who were allowed to pray in public meetings. Choirs, trombones and organ were rejected, as were worldly pleasures such as dancing, card games, alcohol and smoking. Songs, prayers and liturgy came from the old Quandt hymnbook published in Königsberg around 1846 .

The historian Walther Hubatsch reports: “The members of the prayer club were most loyal worshipers, eager guests at the Lord's Supper and made real sacrifices for the Gentile mission. Exemplary active in caring for the poor and the sick, they were considered 'salt and light for the rest of the community'. Personal conversion was seen as a prerequisite for receiving the forgiveness of sins and the ultimate goal was walking in the Holy Spirit. "

The Chrischona preacher Martin Liedholz writes that Kukat emphasized the penance with a lot of weeping and wailing about sin: "The more we cried, the more blessed the assembly appeared."

The association's journal Friedensbote / Pakajaus Paslas

Kukat was in charge of the bulletin of the East Prussian Prayer Association Friedensbote / Pakajaus Paslas , which was published in German and Lithuanian . It was printed in Memel with an edition of over 500 copies and appeared between 1881 and 1939. Shortly after the end of the Second World War, the paper was published again with the approval of the British military authorities.

Quotes

"When I stand in the spirit, I forget that I am in the flesh."

- Christoph Kukat

“We fight with Luther's teaching and the Holy Scriptures against godlessness and false teaching within the regional church, rejecting the false teaching of the Anabaptists and Chiliasts (the millennia), as well as all faiths, parties and sects, which the Bible opposes and catechism Explain the Augsburg confession . "

- Christoph Kukat : Jastremski, Otto: Christoph Kukat and the Evangelical Prayer Association, Main Association of Evangelical Prayer Associations, Gelsenkirchen 1972, p. 13.

“After an hour's march, we also came to the large, illuminated house. Loud chanting sounded towards us. When entering the interior, a double room on the right was filled with about 50 women and 20 men who first kneeled in prayer, then sat on benches and chairs, singing the peculiar Lithuanian chorales. ... I was shown to the left room for the time being, they waited for my arrival. Several heralds and friends were already sitting together, the host welcomed us and invited us to the Lord's Supper, there was beer, coffee and milk, bread, meat and fruit excellent and in abundance. My wife was gallantly granted a place of honor, and after a short snack we went to the meeting and, despite reluctance, were given our seat on the preacher's bench. The brothers overlook the long and hard knees on wooden floorboards or stone just as easily as they overlook the felt slippers of one of the heralds. Kukat sat at the table, with a peasant priest next to him. After the chanting of the chorale, the left one prayed a German prayer about the sinfulness and penance of men, in which a continuous groaning of sin-laden minds was mixed. A new chorale followed, which was sung to the end with the same fervor and an expression immersed in God, and then a Lithuanian sermon and the chanting of the song: ' Lord Jesus Christ, you turn to us .' Now Kukat got up, read the story of Pauli's conversion from the Bible, as any competent pastor can read, and then spoke to the sermon. Kukat is an eminent speaker. It flows from his mouth with no offense or promise. The other heralds followed one after the other with a long, sighing Lithuanian, then a German prayer and the Our Father; at the end they sang: 'God bless our exit', and after a silent prayer they dispersed. ... The new direction wears parted hair, selected simple clothes in black and white, discards everything colorful with the colored Marginne and hates the rambling popular explanations. You pray silently in the meeting room when you enter and exit. This is sung three times, and the sermon extends only to exhortation and repetition of sayings. The old criticize the new: rigidity of doctrine and addiction to outwardly attract attention, this vice versa against those: human statutes and deviation from the Holy Scriptures. Both have a virtuous life in common, which gives the courts nothing to do, furthermore the zealous support of the missionary work, the frequent enjoyment of the Lord's Supper. The heralds, on the other hand, only preach, claim to have visions and to be able to heal the sick by the laying on of hands. They train themselves as soon as they believe that God has given them the ministry. They are held in high regard by the brothers and know how to maintain it. At present (1902) the well-known Christoph Kukat, a former owner in the Tilsit area, who owned several churches, is at the helm. He has already been active as a traveling teacher all over Germany, was once declared insane, but finally received permission from the Oberkirchenrat to preach. "

- Tetzner, Franz: The Slavs in Germany, Braunschweig 1902, pp. 65–74.

literature

  • Helmut Burkhardt, Erich Geldbach, Kurt Heimbucher (eds.): Brockhaus community encyclopedia. Special edition. R. Brockhaus, Wuppertal 1986, ISBN 3-417-24082-4 , pp. 319-320.
  • Ulrich Gäbler (Ed.): History of Pietism. Volume 3, Pietism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 2000, ISBN 978-3-525-55348-0 , p. 173.
  • Wilhelm Gaigalat : The evangelical community movement among the Prussian Lithuanians: historical and contemporary. Königsberg 1904, kpbc.umk.pl
  • Otto Jastremski: Christoph Kukat and the Evangelical Prayer Association. Main Association of Protestant Prayer Associations, Gelsenkirchen 1972.
  • Adam Rapp (Ed.): Traces of Grace. 50 years of joint work in East and West Prussia including the separated areas 1877–1927. Bookshop of the pilgrim mission in Königsberg in 1927.
  • Christoph Ribbat: Religious excitement: Protestant enthusiasts in the empire. Campus, Frankfurt 1996, ISBN 3-593-35599-X , pp. 85, 89.
  • Statutes of the East Prussian Prayer Association. 1897.

Web links

References and comments

  1. ↑ Groß Wersmeningken. In: GenWiki. Retrieved February 18, 2011 .
  2. ↑ Klaus Haag (ed.): I am in love with this country. On the trail of the Chrischona joint work in East and West Prussia (1877–1945). Brunnen Verlag Gießen 2007, p. 11, ISBN 978-3-7655-1401-2 .
  3. ^ Otto Jastremski: Christoph Kukat and the Evangelical Prayer Association. Main Association of Evangelical Prayer Associations, Gelsenkirchen 1972, p. 7.
  4. ^ Otto Jastremski: Christoph Kukat and the Evangelical Prayer Association. Main Association of Evangelical Prayer Associations, Gelsenkirchen 1972, pp. 8–9.
  5. ^ Otto Jastremski: Christoph Kukat and the Evangelical Prayer Association. Main Association of Evangelical Prayer Associations, Gelsenkirchen 1972, pp. 11–13.
  6. ^ Carl Heinrich Rappard: The pilgrim mission to St. Chrischona. Commemorative publication 50 years of pilgrimage. Defeat of writings St. Chrischona, 2nd, increased edition. 1908.
  7. ^ Contributions to East German church history. (PDF; 4.4 MB) In: Episode 6. Peter Maser, Dietrich Meyer, Christian-Erdmann Schott, 2004, p. 15 , archived from the original on February 18, 2011 ; Retrieved February 18, 2011 .
  8. ^ Website of the Evangelical Lutheran Prayer Community V. 2010, archived from the original on February 18, 2011 ; Retrieved February 18, 2011 .
  9. ↑ Sebastian Conrad, Jürgen Osterhammel (ed.): Das Kaiserreich transnational: Deutschland in der Welt 1871-1914 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006, p. 160 ( online ).
  10. ↑ Helmut Ruzas: I want to remember the grace of the Lord. Missionsverlag of the Evangelical Lutheran Prayer Communities, Bielefeld 1989. S. 158 f.
  11. ^ Otto Jastremski: Christoph Kukat and the Evangelical Prayer Association. Main Association of Evangelical Prayer Associations, Gelsenkirchen 1972, pp. 14–43.
  12. ^ Otto Jastremski: Christoph Kukat and the Evangelical Prayer Association. Main Association of Protestant Prayer Associations, Gelsenkirchen 1972, p. 14/16.
  13. ↑ Walther Hubatsch: History of the Protestant Church in East Prussia. Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 1968, Volume I., Chap. 11.
  14. ↑ Klaus Haag (ed.): I am in love with this country. On the trail of the Chrischona joint work in East and West Prussia (1877–1945). Brunnen Verlag Gießen 2007, p. 11, ISBN 978-3-7655-1401-2 .
personal data
SURNAME Kukat, Christoph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION East Prussian evangelist and penitential preacher
DATE OF BIRTH December 31, 1844
PLACE OF BIRTH Groß Wersmeningken, Pillkallen district , East Prussia
DATE OF DEATH August 3, 1914
Place of death Tilsit