Eutin Bible Society
The Eutin Bible Society (formerly: Bible Society for the Principality of Lübeck zu Eutin) still serves as a Bible Society in the area of the Eutin Provost in the Ostholstein parish of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Northern Germany, not to print its own Bibles, but above all to distribute Bibles printed elsewhere as well as Bible pedagogy Actions. From 1980 to 2012 she was a member of the “ North Elbian Bible Societies ” association. She is involved in the general assembly of the German Bible Society .
history
founding
In the summer of 1816 Pastor Ebenezer Henderson, agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society for Northern Europe, traveled from Denmark via Schleswig to Eutin . Eutin was the capital of the Principality of Lübeck and, as such, in the eyes of Henderson, was well suited as the seat of a Bible society. In the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss and the "Special Convention" of 1803, the prince-bishopric was secularized and the Oldenburg Duke, the previous prince-bishop, was awarded as a secular principality. In 1816 Eutin was a relatively independent part of the Duchy of Oldenburg , which had been raised to the Grand Duchy by the Congress of Vienna .
Convinced of the "good cause" represented by Pastor Ebenezer Henderson, the Eutin Superintendent Detlev Olshausen invited a number of honorable citizens together on July 21, 1816, "in order to establish a Bible Society for the Principality of Lübeck too".
The idea of a local Bible society could not have been entirely alien to the Eutinians. After all, President Stolberg's friend and companion , the Eutinian chamber assessor Georg Heinrich Ludwig Nicolovius , presided over a Prussian Bible Society as early as 1814. In the house of the superintendent Olshausen a stately meeting of the Eutin courtly and clergy society had then also met. It should be remembered that of the 24 attendees, 13 were clerical officials, 8 pastors and 3 craftsmen! The elitist composition of the first meeting was decisive for the social future of the Bible society.
As a result of the preparations, a public invitation to “Friends of the Bible and Religion in the Principality of Lübeck” was issued on October 20, 1816, to “form an association to spread the first and to promote the others”. Every resident of the principality was asked to become a member of the Bible Society on the condition that “he would make an annual contribution from at least one Reichsthaler”. For this purpose, entry lists were displayed in all three rectories in the city.
The date of this public appeal, which also provided information about the work of the British and Foreign Bible Societies , is considered by the Eutin Bible Society to be its founding date. The appeal of October 20, 1816 was signed by 12 participants in the first session. On New Year's Day 1817 the first meeting of the Eutin Bible Society took place in the house of Superintendent Olshausen.
The statutes of the Bible Society reflected the theology, piety, and spirit of the founding fathers of the Eutin Bible Society. So it also says:
"The purpose of this society is to promote Christian knowledge and attitudes first in this principality, and otherwise, as far as its strengths, by disseminating Bibles and New Testaments or individual books of the Bible after Luther's translation , without comments and interpretations."
There is no doubt that the spiritual requirements of the founders of the Bible Society were very diverse. His High Princely Highness Peter Friedrich Ludwig was known as the wise father of the country, who had set up numerous cultural, spiritual and popular educational foundations and helped establish flourishing institutions, be it the poor welfare system, the school funds or the high school reforms. Perhaps because of his tragic family history, he was alive
"In almost monastic renunciation, in the greatest simplicity, averse to any pleasure, devoted only to work for his country."
The Duke agreed to give each confirmand in his principality a Bible from his own box, about a year before the confirmation, so that everyone had his own Bible for confirmation lessons. In the first few years the Bible Society therefore only had to determine the Bible needs among adults and to procure Bibles for them.
Further development in the 19th century
The best and most open-minded men in the Eutin government and consistory professed the Bible movement . Following the Schleswig-Holsteiners, who met for their annual meetings in Gottorf Castle , and in order to give the new society the patriotic decorum, the second general assembly of the Eutin Bible Society was held on June 30, 1817 in the ducal castle. It also became the custom for the director to address the General Assembly every year, which was printed. The spiritual coldness and indifference to the higher affairs of man have been denounced again and again.
From 1818 to 1841 the annual meeting met annually under the chairmanship of the director in the hall of the new town hall. A persistent problem in the early years of the Bible Society was the apparently widespread misconception that the Eutin Bible Society was a "closed society," an idea that was undoubtedly nourished by the social composition of the population.
The spiritual cohesion of the Eutin Bible Society with the parent company in London , Schleswig-Holstein , Hamburg-Altona and Russian Biblical Society was promoted through correspondence and the exchange of annual reports.
In 1834 the superintendent addressed the Bible friends and warned them to heed the scientific knowledge regarding the origin, the purpose and the design of the sacred documents. If one reads the addresses of the Eutinian theologians, the reader feels that the Enlightenment spirit wanted to overcome the struggle of the denominations among one another by applying reason .
The former willingness of the Eutin clergy to take part in the annual general meetings of the Bible Society had meanwhile waned so far that only Pastor Johann Christoph Schwarck from Malente appeared at the 21st general meeting . Since it was not considered necessary to have a deputy director in addition to the director, Pastor Encke was asked to take over the office of director. It was also decided that all teachers in the princely schools should be eligible to become members of the Bible Society, even without making an annual contribution.
When the 30th General Assembly met on July 18, 1849, 11 school teachers were present in addition to three pastors. In the 1940s, the Bible Society took over the distribution of hymn books at discounted prices. By 1852 7,417 Bibles and 637 hymn books had been distributed. The membership amounted to 30 people.
Developments in the 20th Century
On November 25, 1901, the members of the youth club at Eutin met to draft new statutes for the Bible Society,
“Since the current constitution has evaporated somewhat over time and in particular under the more favorable material situation of society, so that the old statutes were no longer followed and some assessors were last elected to the board in 1897, the necessity has emerged to draft new statutes. "
For the annual meetings from 1902 to 1910, people met regularly in November in the sacristy of the town church. The superintendent held the chair. What is striking is the almost complete presence of the eleven pastors of the Princely Eutinian Church at the annual meetings of the Bible Society, so that one gets the impression that the annual meetings possibly also had the function of a spiritual consistory.
From 1922 onwards, in addition to all pastors, several teachers again took part in the annual general meetings. On June 2, 1930, the regional synod elected Pastor Wilhelm Kieckbusch from Malente as provost. As such, he called a meeting of the Eutin Bible Society on May 23, 1934, attended by fourteen pastors. He called Pastor Walter Röpcke from Eutin to work in the management of the Eutin Bible Society "and from then on formed the board with him". With this short report the handwritten protocol book of the Eutin Bible Society closes.
A general meeting was held on March 19, 1956. Pastor Röpcke resigned from the board and his place was taken by Pastor Walter Tilburzy. On December 9, 1963, Wilhelm Kieckbusch, who had meanwhile been appointed bishop, wrote to the Eutin District Court:
"As the following associations no longer have members, I request that these associations be removed from the register of registered associations."
These were the following associations: Association for female community care, Association of Biblical Society, Evangelical Regional Association Gustav-Adolf-Foundation, Association of Diakonie of the Evangelical Church Community Eutin. On January 17, 1964, the name of the Bible Society was deleted from the register of associations at the Eutin District Court.
The Eutin Bible Society, reawakened in 1965, is undoubtedly the spiritual legacy of Rensefeld pastor Hartwig Bünz. In his report to the chairman of the Bible Society, Mr. Propst Horst Dreyer , dated February 25, 1982 he wrote:
“With an official assignment I have been doing this service since the beginning of 1965, the year the Evangelical Biblical Work was founded ... Without any special assignment, I looked around for the then almost lifeless Eutin Bible Society and tried to get it out of its To wake up sleep, which was then reflected at least in my former community in Rensefeld through increased Bible acquisition and distribution, but also found imitation here and there in other communities. In 1965, the department for Bible dissemination was created in the then regional church , with which I was entrusted and at the same time suggested to me that the Eutin Bible Society, which I had already taken care of privately, was, so to speak, its only member besides the bishop as the born chairman to get going again. First of all, it was necessary to make the double roots of the Eutin Bible Society visible again, on the one hand as a free, independent association, on the other hand, however, the integration into the functions of the regional church in the form of the rule that has existed from the beginning that the leading clergyman of Eutin is also the chairman of the Eutinians Bible Society, this is reinforced by the formation of the Biblical Dissemination Department, which in turn was linked to the practical management of the Bible Society. "
The personal commitment and intensive commitment of Pastor Hartwig Bünz not only for the interests of the Eutin Bible Society, but also for the North Elbian Bible Societies and those of the German Bible Society over a period of more than 17 years cannot be overestimated.
On January 13, 1966 in Schleswig, he was one of the co-founders of the North Elbian Bible Societies Working Group, which was composed of five autonomous Bible Societies. Especially in the 1970s, the members of the study group met to discuss their common concerns for the spread of the Bible in Northern Elbe . Pastor Bünz also played a decisive role in founding the North Elbian Bible Society eV on October 15, 1980 in Kiel. Until he left the Bible missionary service on January 26, 1983, he stood by the young association in word and deed. As a delegate of the Eutin Bible Society, he took part in the general assembly of the Evangelical Bible Society and, after 1981, in the general assembly of the German Bible Society and the office conferences of the German Bible Society.
His dream came true when he was able to move into the house at Kirchplatz 1 in 1981. In the period from 1970 to 1976, 1,460 full Bibles, 925 New Testaments, 865 partial editions and 2,871 selected texts of the Bible were published. Each year, the confirmands supervised by Pastor Bünz received a Bible book as a gift from the Bible Society.
On August 17, 1982, the deacon and religion teacher Traugott Bünz was entrusted with the management of the Bible Society. In May 1988, the Church Councilor Manfred Girndt took over the management. The current managing director is Werner Guderjan.
In the meantime, the following Bible missionary projects have been implemented by the management: The Eutin Bible Society is represented with a Bible stand at the annual church district mission days, the church district women's days and the open day of St. Michaelis in Eutin. In addition, the office of the Bible Society is open on Thursdays when the shops are open when the press mentions “A Bible for the table of gifts”. Members of the Trumpet Choir receive Bibles for confirmation and / or marriage as a gift from the Bible Society.
swell
- Anniversary publication of the Eutin Bible Society on the occasion of its 175th anniversary in 1991 . With contributions by Otto FA Meinardus , Ako Haarbeck and Horst Dreyer , Eutin 1991
- Peter Godzik (Ed.): History of the North Elbian Bible Societies , 2004 (online at pkgodzik.de) (PDF; 411 kB)
literature
- Wilhelm Gundert: History of the German Bible Societies in the 19th Century (Texts and Works on the Bible 3) , Bielefeld. Luther 1987, pp. 142 f., 178, 240, 266, 316, 336.