Danish folk church

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Church in Holte / Denmark

The Danish Volkskirche ( Danish : Folkekirken ) is an Evangelical Lutheran church in Denmark . The king used to be at its head. This regulation has been abolished since the constitution of 1849, and since then parliament and government have stood alongside the crown. It has the characteristics of a state church , but in terms of its self- image it is a people's church. It is by far the largest church in Denmark and Greenland with a total of 4,339,511 members (as of 2019).

The Faroe Islands have had an independent national church since 2007 .

history

Church in Villingerød / Denmark

In the course of the Reformation , King Christian III. the Lutheran denomination and had the Catholic bishops taken into custody. At the Diet of Copenhagen in 1536, the church property was confiscated from the crown and the Lutheran denomination declared the only valid one. In place of the bishops were in 1537 seven superintendents , but soon again the name Bishop received.

The biggest and most important innovation was the introduction of the national language in the liturgy between 1537 and 1539. Absolutism was introduced by the King's Law of 1661 and the king's sovereignty over the clergy and religious services was established in Article 6. The law of Christian V of 1683 (Danske Lov) repeated this absolute sovereignty of the king over the church in Book 1, Chapter 1. The Holy Scriptures , the Apostles' Creed , the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds , the Augsburg Confession and Luther's Small Catechism were established as content of faith . Catholics (" Papists ") lost the right of inheritance and had to leave the empire: monks, Jesuits and papists were forbidden to stay on the death penalty. This affected all non-Lutheran denominations, exceptions only applied to diplomats and their staff.

The constitution of 1849 eliminated church leadership by the king and introduced religious freedom. After a parish council law was passed in 1903, the state church began to become increasingly democratic, which led to the admission of women to the pastoral office in 1947 and to the election of the first female bishop in 1995. From 2012, the Danish Church will allow same-sex couples to be married in church .

The theologian and writer Nikolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig , who lived in the 19th century, had a great influence on the Danish church . Many hymns come from him. The church movement of Grundtvigianismus was named after him.

organization

Bishops of the Danish People's Church 2010

The Danish constitution states that the monarch must be of the Lutheran creed. In administrative and non-theological questions, the Folketing Parliament has the power to legislate, the Ministry of Churches is responsible for the implementation regulations. It has existed as an independent ministry since 1916, but the minister of church often heads a larger ministry in personal union.

There is no central church administration, only the inter-church council ( Folkekirkens mellemkirkelige råd ), which is responsible for ecumenical relations at home and abroad. The church ministry, and thus the church, is responsible for the registration of births and deaths, regardless of the church membership of the citizens. The parish offices of the individual parishes also take on the task of registry offices.

The dioceses are independent in theological questions. The management of the dioceses is incumbent on the bishops, together with the administrative directors appointed by the state (stiftamtmand), whereby a diocese council (stiftsråd) consisting of pastors and church leaders has significant say. The bishops are elected by the pastors and church councils and then appointed by the queen. The Bishop of Copenhagen, who takes the role of primus inter pares (first among equals) among the bishops , carries out the introduction.

The dioceses are divided into provosts , which form the link between the communities and the dioceses. In the 11 dioceses there are a total of 111 provosts and 2200 parishes.

Until 2007, the Danish national church consisted of twelve dioceses. With the Takeover Act of April 4, 2005, the state government of the Faroe Islands decided the independence of the Diocese of the Faroe Islands . On the national holiday of the Faroe Islands, Ólavsøka , the Faroese People's Church was founded in 2007 .

78.4 percent of the population are members of the Volkskirche (as of January 1, 2014).

Peter Skov-Jakobsen , Bishop of Copenhagen and head of the Bishops' Conference

Dioceses

Today's dioceses are largely based on the division in the Middle Ages.
Diocese of
Danish: pen 		Bishop
as of January 2018 		Members Dom
Aalborg Henning Toft Bro 439,981 Sct. Budolfi Domkirke Aalborg
Aarhus Henrik Wigh-Poulsen 658.530 Århus Domkirke
Funen Tine Lindhardt 396.042 Odense Domkirke
Haderslev Marianne Christiansen 384.434 Vor Frue Domkirke Haderslev
Elsinore Lise-Lotte Rebel 688,807 Sct. Olai Domkirke Elsinore
Copenhagen Peter Skov-Jakobsen 468.238 Vor Frue Domkirke København
Lolland-Falster Marianne Gaarden 83,850 Maribo Domkirke
Ribe Elof Westergaard 300,599 Vor Frue Domkirke Ribe
Roskilde Peter Fischer-Møller 577.845 Roskilde Domkirke
Viborg Henrik Stubkjær 354.181 Vor Frue Domkirke Viborg
Greenland Sofie Petersen 33,000 Before Frelser Kirke Nuuk

Confession

The central confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran People's Church are:

She is a member of the World Council of Churches , the Lutheran World Federation , the Conference of European Churches and the Community of Evangelical Churches in Europe . After 15 years of observer status, the Danish People's Church also joined the Porvoo Fellowship in 2010 , which consists of the Nordic and Baltic Lutheran churches and the British and Irish Anglican churches .

German-speaking communities

German-speaking congregations also belong to the Volkskirche, but they are of very different origins and structures.

The German-speaking Lutheran congregation in Copenhagen was given the St. Peter's Church by King Friedrich II in 1585 . It belongs to the diocese of Copenhagen and is (after the German St. Gertruds Congregation in Stockholm) the oldest German-speaking congregation abroad. In addition to it, there has also been a German Reformed congregation in Copenhagen since 1685.

For the German minority in the part of North Schleswig that fell to Denmark through the referendum in Schleswig in 1920 , the Danish Volkskirche maintains four German parishes in the towns of Haderslev (Hadersleben) , Aabenraa (Aabenraa) , Sønderborg ( Sønderborg ) and Tønder (Tønder) , respectively are occupied by a pastor trained in Germany. They are integrated into the dioceses of Haderslev and Ribe .

Since church support for German-speaking parishioners was only granted very restrictively in the countryside, members of the German minority in Denmark founded the Nordschleswigsche Gemeinde in 1923 , which is organized as a free church in Denmark, but with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Northern Germany (or its predecessor churches ) connected is. Five pastors have been working there since 2005, and they form a joint convention with the four pastors from the northern Schleswig municipalities.

Danish-speaking communities abroad

The Heiliggeistkirche in Flensburg, main church of the Danish church in southern Schleswig.

The Danish parishes abroad are looked after by the Danish Church Abroad (Danske Sømands- og Udlandskirker). In Germany there is one Danish church in Berlin ( Christianskirken ) and one in Hamburg ( Benediktekirken ). There is also a Danish municipality each in Switzerland and Austria.

The Danish Church in southern Schleswig is also affiliated with the Danish Church abroad and looks after the 35 parishes of the Danish minority in northern Schleswig-Holstein . Their main church is the Heiliggeistkirche in Flensburg.

literature

  • Otmar Hahn, Volker Herrmann (ed.): Main topic: Diakonie in Denmark . (= DWI info 24). University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg 1990/1991 ( full text ).
  • Mark Hallett: State and Church in Denmark (= European University Writings, Series 2, Law , Volume 3072). Lang, Frankfurt am Main a. a. 2001, ISBN 3-631-36977-8 (also dissertation at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau 2000).
  • Poul Hartling (Red.): The Danish Church . Det Danske Selskab, Copenhagen 1964.
  • Günter Weitling : German church life in North Schleswig since the referendum in 1920 . Bund Deutscher Nordschleswiger & Archive / Historical Research Center of the German Ethnic Group, Aabenraa 2007, ISBN 978-87-991948-0-3 .
  • Martin Schwarz Lausten : Denmark I. In: Theologische Realenzyklopädie (TRE) Vol. 8 (1981), pp. 300-317.
  • Martin Schwarz Lausten: Danmarks kirkehistorie . Gyldendal , Copenhagen 1987, 2004, ISBN 87-02-02701-1 (English: A church history of Denmark . Ashgate, 2002).

Web links

Commons : Danish People's Church  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ For the character of the Volkskirche in the tradition of Grundtvig see Willy Westergaard Madsen: The Danish Volkskirche . In: Poul Hartling (Red.): The Danish Church . Det Danske Selskab, Copenhagen 1964, pp. 95-108.
  2. ↑ Danish Ministry of Churches
  3. ↑ Kongen haver og eene Høyeste Magt over ald Clericiet, fra den Høyeste til den Laveste, at beskikke og anordne ald Kirke og Gudstieniste, Moder, Sammenkomst and Forsamlinger om Religious-Sager efter Guds Ord og the Augsburgiske Confession,…. (The king also has the highest power over the entire clergy, from the highest to the lowest, and he appoints and arranges all churches and services, assemblies and conferences in church matters according to God's word and the Augsburg confession ...)
  4. ↑ 2nd book.
  5. ↑ 7th book, 1st chapter.
  6. ↑ Der Standard: Church weddings for Danish lesbians and gays
  7. ^ Website of the municipality .
  8. ^ Günter Weitling : German Church Life in North Schleswig since the referendum in 1920 . Published by the Bund Deutscher Nordschleswiger and archive / historical research center of the German ethnic group, Aabenraa 2007, ISBN 978-87-991948-0-3 .