German Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ukraine

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Church of St. Paul in Odessa, main church of the DELKU

The German Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ukraine (DELKU) is an independent regional church in the network of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Central Asia (ELKRAS). The official seat is Odessa .

history

The beginnings of Lutheranism in Ukraine go back to the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century. At that time, the tsars called settlers into the country for the newly acquired tracts of land along the north coast of the Black Sea . Numerous farmers and craftsmen, especially from Württemberg and the Palatinate , founded villages here in "New Russia". German merchants and officers soon set up new Protestant communities in the cities too.

Churches were built - the St. Paul's Church in Odessa , with 1200 seats, was the third largest Lutheran church in Russia, alongside the cathedrals in Moscow and St. Petersburg. It had its own school system, orphanages and old people's homes, as well as Protestant hospitals.

In the struggle of communism against religion in the years after the October Revolution , the Lutheran Church in Russia also perished. Numerous pastors from Ukraine were also victims of the Stalin terror in the 1930s. Those who survived the abductions fled with the German troops at the end of the Second World War or were deported to Siberia . Very few of the 400,000 Ukrainian Germans survived - adapted and unrecognized - the Soviet era in Ukraine.

Mikhail Gorbachev's “ glasnost ” policy and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union gave Germans the opportunity to return to their parents' homeland. In 1992 there were still 40,000 people in Ukraine who stated that their nationality was “German”. The German cultural associations with the name “ Wiedergeburt ” became their collecting basin .

The first groups emerged from the “rebirth” and registered as parishes. These still include communities in large cities such as Kiev ( St. Katharinen ), Odessa ( St. Paul ), Charkow and Lemberg , but also small communities in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

structure

The DELKU initially comprised 30 congregations in which 15 pastors and more than 40 preachers served. In 2013 it had around 3,000 members.

The highest decision-making body is the synod ; the tasks of the church leadership are carried out between the synodal meetings by the elected Synod Presidium and the bishop. Relations with the other ELCRAS churches were reorganized through an inter-church contract that came into force on November 28, 2010.

Since 2014, eleven parishes have left the DELKU due to the leadership of Bishop Maschewski , including the parishes in Kiev , Donetsk and Krywyj Rih. In 2016 the church still had about 2,000 members.

Theological orientation

Under Bishop Maschewski, the DELKU increasingly turned to more orthodox Lutheran positions. An ordination of female pastors is not possible.

bishop

The bishop is the spiritual director of the DELKU and is part of the ELCRAS bishops' council.

Office holders were or are:

The church chancellery is located in 65023 Odessa , ul. Nowoselskego 68 (House of the Church of St. Paul).

Partner churches

The DELKU's partner church was the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria (ELKB) from 1991 to June 30, 2015 . The partnership was initiated by the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Church in Bavaria suspended, but immediately resumed after the change in leadership in the DELKU in October 2018; financial support is to follow again after the creation of "reliable structures".

The Gustav-Adolf-Werk also ended financial support for the DELKU from the 2016 project plan.

In 2016, the DELKU agreed a closer cooperation with the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod from the USA, which represents Orthodox Lutheranism and does not belong to the Lutheran World Federation .

crisis

After the Bavarian State Church had sent the bishops of the DELKU by then, the DELKU was to determine its own leader for the first time in 2013 as a step towards independence. The synodals from 31 parishes elected the Russian-German Serge Maschewski as the new bishop with 27 votes against the defeated pastor Hamburg from Odessa with 24 votes.

Shortly after his election, however, the DELKU fell into a serious crisis. His critics accused Maschewski of a despotic leadership style, financial lack of transparency and other misconduct. Maschewski changed the entire 15-person staff of the DELKU law firm in Odessa. The posting contracts of the critical pastors Haska (Kiev) and Hamburg (Odessa) were not renewed despite the approval of the EKD , which finances the pastors' posts . Eleven congregations interrupted their relations with the church leadership of the DELKU due to the official style of Bishop Maschewski, who no longer regarded them as part of his church. "Maschewski has installed a dictatorial system that has nothing to do with the Lutheran understanding of the church," said his predecessor Uland Spahlinger.

Synodal president Konstantin Burlow-Wassiljew was dismissed in July 2016 after calling for the removal of Bishop Maschewski. At the 2016 Synod, 24 of 51 elected synodals were denied entry by a private security service because their congregations were no longer members of the DELKU. The Church's financial position was confirmed without a proper budget report and budget.

On October 9, 2018, a large majority of the ordinary synod of the DELKU withdrew Bishop Serge Maschewski from trust and authority and elected Pawlo Schwarz, pastor of the German Evangelical Lutheran Resurrection Church in Kharkiv, as his successor for one year ("episcopal visitator") according to the DELKU's statutes . On December 1, 2018, Schwarz was chaired by the chairman of the ELCRAS bishop's council, Bishop Alexander Scheiermann , with the participation of bishops from Poland, Hungary and Georgia and the participation of other high-ranking domestic and foreign church representatives and politicians as well as from the parishes of the DELKU Office introduced.

Before that, on November 21, 2018, the day of penance and prayer, clergymen of the DELKU had written a conciliatory letter to Maschewski and supporters, in which they called for joint work for the good of parishes and the church and invited Schwarz to take office. According to the Martin Luther Bund , Maschewski described the letter as "driveling by the mentally disturbed for insane readers".

Despite being voted out by the synod, Maschewski still sees himself in office, now calls himself “Bishop of all of Ukraine” and has some of the parishes on his side. Maschewski was able to revoke Pawlo Schwarz's state registration as administrative chairman of the DELKU and therefore still has access to their finances, real estate and cars, which is why the ELKB has not yet financially supported the DELKU again. During the crisis, the membership of the DELKU fell sharply: when Maschewskis took office in 2013, it had 2,000 to 2,500 members, in spring 2019 - Schwarz and Maschewski's congregations together - around a thousand. The church leadership of the DELKU published an official statement on July 5, 2019 regarding Maschewski, his activities and the legal situation.

The DELKU Synod 2019 from October 25th to 26th elected Pawlo Schwarz, who had previously been an episcopal visitor for a year, as bishop for a term of five years. He will be introduced to his office on November 30, 2019.

literature

  • Friedrich Heyer, Church history of the Ukraine in the 20th century. From the turn of the First World War to the beginnings of an independent Ukrainian state . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2003, ISBN 3-525-56191-1 , pp. 455-461.
  • Wilhelm Kahle: Ways and Shape of Evangelical Lutheran Churches in Russia. From the Moscow Empire to the Present , Erlangen 2002, ISBN 3-87513-117-7 .
  • Claus-Jürgen Roepke: "Give us your good spirit, which always points us to Christ". 15 years of the German Evangelical Lutheran Church in Ukraine , in: Lutherischer Dienst. Journal of the Martin Luther Association in collaboration with the DNK / LWB, 2007, issue 3, pp. 3–7.

Web links

Hints:

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Florian Kellermann: Protestants in the Ukraine - Ideological trench warfare in the Evangelical Church. Deutschlandfunk, April 22, 2016, accessed on March 21, 2017 .
  2. ^ Introduction by Serge Maschewski into the office of Bishop of the German Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Ukraine. Der Bote Spezial, 2014, accessed on December 6, 2015 (translations into German of the Russian-language monthly newspaper “News of the Lutheran Churches”, issue 1/2014, published by the ELK in Russia).
  3. ^ Bishop Pawel Schwarz, the visitator. DELKU, October 2018, accessed on November 6, 2018 .
  4. ↑ a b New beginnings in the Ukraine: New episcopal visitor introduced. idea, December 4, 2018, accessed December 4, 2018 .
  5. ↑ a b DELKU Synod 2019. DELKU, November 1, 2019, accessed on November 6, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Ukraine / Germany: Bavarian regional church ends partnership. Gustav-Adolf-Werk e. V. - Diaspora work of the Protestant Church in Germany, July 2, 2015, accessed on December 6, 2015 .
  7. ↑ Bavaria stop cooperation with Ukrainian Lutherans. evangelisch.de , August 1, 2015, accessed December 6, 2015 .
  8. ↑ Ukrainians are happy about new partnership with Bavarian regional church. Evangelisches Sonntagsblatt für Bayern , October 30, 2018, accessed on October 30, 2018 .
  9. ↑ Ukraine: DELKU agrees partnership with Missouri Synod. Gustav-Adolf-Werk e. V. - Diaspora work of the Evangelical Church in Germany, August 19, 2016, accessed on March 22, 2017 .
  10. ↑ Florian Kellermann: Protestants in the Ukraine - Ideological trench warfare in the Evangelical Church. Deutschlandfunk, April 22, 2016, accessed on July 19, 2016 .
  11. ↑ Source: epd : Lutheran Church in Ukraine in crisis. OUR CHURCH (UK) - Evangelical newspaper for Westphalia and Lippe, July 12, 2016, accessed on July 18, 2016 .
  12. ↑ Thomas Greif: Lies and Intimidation - The Bavarian partner church in Ukraine falls apart under Bishop Maschewski. (No longer available online.) Evangelisches Sonntagsblatt für Bayern , July 17, 2016, archived from the original on September 30, 2016 ; Retrieved July 18, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.sonntagsblatt.de
  13. ↑ Achim Schmid (questions): "A disaster" - Senior Church Councilor Michael Martin: "We have put the partnership on hold". (No longer available online.) Evangelisches Sonntagsblatt für Bayern, July 17, 2016, archived from the original on September 27, 2016 ; Retrieved July 19, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.sonntagsblatt.de
  14. ↑ As a (German-language) reply on the Internet, only on a private Facebook page is a detailed alleged "statement from the church leadership of the German Evangelical Lutheran Church in Ukraine (DELKU) on the tendency and manipulative behavior of representatives of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria (ELKB) ... “.
  15. ↑ Helmut Frank: »Your congregation has been canceled« - Ukraine: Bishop Serge Maschewski continues his course of confrontation. Evangelisches Sonntagsblatt für Bayern 38/2016, September 18, 2016, accessed on September 21, 2016 .
  16. ^ Announcement of the change of bishop. DELKU, October 2018, accessed on November 6, 2018 .
  17. ↑ Michael Huebner: UKRAINE: Aufbruch in der Ukraine. New Episcopal Visitor introduced. Martin Luther Bund, December 3, 2018, accessed December 4, 2018 .
  18. ↑ Pastors Pavlo Schwarz, Alexander Gross, Oleg Fischer, Wladislaw Zechanowitsch, Igor Schemigon: Letter to Pastors Serge Maschewski, Igor Taranenko, Viktor Zelinko, Swjatoslaw Fechtel, Pawel Zajakin. (PDF) November 21, 2018, accessed December 4, 2018 .
  19. ↑ Philipp Demling: Develop or die - the situation of the Lutheran German Church in Ukraine is difficult and complicated. evangelisch.de, May 21, 2019, accessed on May 22, 2019 .
  20. ^ Official declaration of the DELKU church leadership. DELKU, July 5, 2019, accessed on July 21, 2019 .