Duisburg General Synod

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Duisburg General Synod was the first joint synod of the Reformed communities in the Duchy of Jülich-Kleve-Berg . It took place from September 7th to 11th, 1610 in Duisburg's Salvatorkirche and is considered the beginning of an independent German Reformed Church.

requirements

Due to the stroke of Duke Wilhelm V in 1566, the death of Hereditary Prince Carl-Friedrich in 1572 and the succession by the younger son Johann Wilhelm , who was considered crazy, in 1594, the duchies of Jülich, Kleve and Berg became the plaything of the powers that be. No denomination was preferred by the state, so that there were Roman Catholic, Lutheran and (mostly) Reformed communities in the country. After Johann Wilhelm died childless in 1609, Brandenburg and the Duchy of Palatinate-Neuburg shared the duchies before the German Emperor Rudolf II could assert feudal claims. Both sides promised the estates religious tolerance when they inherited , the Brandenburgers even promised religious autonomy.

The Reformed saw the opportunity to use the power vacuum to reorganize the church system. The congregations had been presbyterial-synodal since the Wesel Convention in 1568 , but had no common synod at the level of the United Duchies. Under the protection of the Brandenburg succession, representatives of the Protestant communities met in Düren in August 1610 to prepare the general synod in Duisburg.

Process and result

Twenty-eight pastors and eight lay people attended the synod . The Wesel preacher Wilhelm Stephani († 1636) served as president . A result protocol was drawn up, which exists in many copies. Some of them are preserved in the archive of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland in Düsseldorf. In the city archives of the city of Duisburg there is a copy with numerous signatures, but it is not certain whether it is a copy or an original.

The synod confirmed the presbyterial-synodal order and made it more precise on many points. Each parish was to be led by a presbytery , which also had the right to elect a pastor. In turn, representatives from the presbytery are sent to the next higher body, the Classical Convention. Every three years the affairs of the entire Church should be decided at a general synod. The resolutions were groundbreaking for the Reformed, later also the Lutheran congregations in the Rhineland and - via the Rhenish-Westphalian church order of 1835 - ultimately for all of German Protestantism.

It was also decided that the Electoral Palatinate Agende (only the Dutch in Kleve ) should be used in all municipalities . The Heidelberg Catechism was established as the doctrinal basis. Each parish was required to employ a schoolmaster.

Edition of the protocol

  • Albert Rosenkranz : General Synodal Book. The acts of the general synods of Jülich, Kleve, Berg and Mark 1610-1793. 1st chapter. Düsseldorf 1966, p. 17 ff.

literature

  • Stefan Flesch, Michael Hofferberth: So that extremes are prevented ... The 1st Reformed General Synod in Duisburg 1610 between power politics and charity. Evangelical Church in the Rhineland, Düsseldorf 2010, ISBN 978-3-930250-49-3 (exhibition catalog).
  • Stefan Flesch (Ed.): The I. Reformed General Synod 1610 - from the perspective of science. Lectures on the occasion of the congress of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland for the 400th anniversary of the First Reformed General Synod in Duisburg from 7th to 9th September 2010 (= monthly booklet for Protestant church history of the Rhineland 60, special volume). Habelt, Bonn 2011, ISBN 978-3-7749-3734-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Joseph Milz: History of the City of Duisburg. Mercator-Verlag, Duisburg 2013
  2. ↑ https://www.uni-due.de/collcart/es/sem/s10/acta.pps Katharina Gorka, Ann Kristin Nowak, Barbara E. Fink, Eckehart Stöve: Die Duisburger Generalsynod von 1610. Duisburg, 2002