Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Hamburg state

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The Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Hamburg State was a regional church in the German Empire and the Federal Republic of Germany . It was the Lutheran regional church in the Hanseatic city of Hamburg .

In 1948 she was a founding member of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) and also belonged to the United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany (VELKD).

On January 1, 1977, it merged with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Lübeck , the Evangelical Lutheran Regional Church Schleswig-Holstein including its regional superintendent of Ratzeburg (Duchy of Lauenburg) , the Evangelical Lutheran Regional Church of Eutin and the Harburg District of the Evangelical Lutheran Regional Church of Hanover to the North Elbian Evangelical Lutheran Church . This in turn was absorbed into the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Northern Germany on May 27, 2012 .

territory

Until 1937, the territory of the state and the church territory were identical. The growing city of Hamburg was initially only able to incorporate places in the Hamburg state territory, which ecclesiastically already belonged completely to the state church. The biggest changes were brought about by the Greater Hamburg Law of 1937, through which the Hamburg state gave up a few exclaves and in return received many surrounding cities and communities. On April 1, 1938, all places in the newly defined national territory were united to form the unified municipality of the City of Hamburg. In terms of the church, however, everything remained the same, so that moving in the urban area could also mean a change between the regional churches, while the parishes were located in the enclaves in the neighboring state of Prussia, and after 1946 in Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein. The church merger of 1977 brought a new demarcation that united the urban area of ​​Hamburg with some northern parishes in the Holstein district of Stormarn to form the Hamburg district of the newly formed regional church.

history

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Hamburg state is inextricably linked with the history of the Hanseatic city of Hamburg. This introduced the Reformation in 1529 according to the Lutheran confession, so that Hamburg was a Lutheran city for centuries.

As in other cities, parishes in Hamburg were not just parishes , but urban political units from the Middle Ages . They formed four statutory bodies (the parishes of St. Petri , St. Nikolai , St. Katharinen, and St. Jacobi ) in which those who had rights to egen (an early form of free property) could call their own, and the heads of the guilds - i.e. only a fraction of the male population - were entitled to vote.

The Reformation significantly limited the power of the Hamburg Senate . For at that time each parish called three deacons (twelve in total) who, as the college of the elders, took on the centralized collection, administration and distribution of funds for the poor. Since then, the senior elders of Hamburg have administered all the individual foundations and income for the poor and those foundations that have since been added to the fund , which has been centralized under the name of the General Divine Box, at the four parishes . On September 29, 1528, the then four parishes and the Senate contractually agreed to centralize poor money at the new College of the Elderly. At the same time, the treaty guaranteed the senior elders the right to jointly decide with the Senate on all matters relating to the welfare and harmony of the city. Up until 1860, the senior elders formed Hamburg's third constitutional body alongside the citizenship and senate.

Later, when the Parochianen of the parish of St. Michael in the New Town , which had become independent in 1647 by Nicolai parish, with the inhabitants of the older four parishes of the old town were equal, they also sent three representatives. Together with the four churches mentioned above, St. Michaelis still forms the quintet of Hamburg's main churches . From 1685 there were 15 senior citizens, sixty parish representatives instead of 48, and 180 members of the citizens' assembly instead of the previous 144. These ecclesiastical-political structures existed until the 19th century, with each committee recruiting successors for vacancies from the next largest. Since the Lutheran parishes and their collegiate bodies, which were occupied by Parochians, formed Hamburg's constitutional bodies, it was simply impossible for non-Lutherans to get into these political bodies.

According to Bugenhagen's church ordinance of 1529 , the spiritual heads of the regional church were initially superintendents appointed by the Senate. In 1593 the superintendent was given up and the five main pastors at the main churches formed the spiritual ministry , which collegially led the state church and elected a senior from among its members as primus inter pares .

From 1806 Hamburg was a sovereign city-state , interrupted by the French annexation from 1811 to 1814, but then reconstituted. Reforms gradually allowed non-Lutherans to acquire citizenship, and by 1849 Jews, Catholics and Reformed Christians were allowed to become citizens. In this way, non-Lutherans could also take on offices in administration and seats in the citizenry who had previously administered the interests of the Lutheran state church. Hamburg's new constitution of 1860 therefore began to separate state and church by providing for the formation of the church's own organs. The senior elders lost their position as a constitutional organ and became a purely Lutheran church organ. From then on, only the Lutheran senators, as a college, made decisions on church issues and no longer necessarily all senators. The Lutheran senators confirmed the church laws passed by the synod, and the elections of the various office holders, pastors and members of the church leadership, such as the senior from Hamburg, down to lay members of the church leadership . In 1871 the Lutheran Church of Hamburg was constituted by its new church order as a regional church with the name Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Hamburg State .

The spiritual direction remained with the Spiritual Ministry with his senior as primus inter pares. In March 1919, the Lutheran senators officially gave up the summit episcopate , church officials no longer required government approval, the regional church was no longer a state church. The regional church took this into account and changed and democratized its church order in 1923. The regional synod was now the highest legislative body, which also elected the church council (designation of the new executive church leadership) to which the senior belonged as a born member . However, the senior was no longer elected by the members of the Spiritual Ministry, but by the synod from among the five main pastors. The Spiritual Ministry now comprised all pastors of the five main churches, the rural parishes now recognized as equal, and the newly formed suburban parishes and was given the task of an advisory and supervisory body in the 1923 church ordinance.

With the introduction of universal suffrage for all women and men with resident status in Hamburg in 1919, not just for the few thousand holders of Hamburg citizenship, an emergency ordinance was issued by the church leadership in 1919, which also introduced universal suffrage in church elections. The church ordinance of 1923 retained this.

The witch hunt on democrats after the abolition of the civil rights of the Weimar Constitution and the reshuffle of the Hamburg citizenship in accordance with the results of the Reichstag election in 1933 encouraged anti-republican synodals, supporters of the National Socialist German Christians , and conservative anti- liberal synodals, supporters of the Young Reformation movement led by Bernhard Heinrich Forck at the time and use the presbyterial-synod church regiment to repeal it. Synodal president Simon Schöffel convened an extraordinary regional synod , where the majority of the synodal members of the Young Reformation Movement and German Christians forced Karl Horn , the incumbent senior, to resign.

With their majority, the Young Reformation and German Christian synodals removed essential provisions of the presbyterial-synodal church order at the regional synod on May 29, 1933 and replaced the elected church leadership consisting of senior and church council with the office of regional bishop , previously unknown in Hamburg , for which Schöffel took and into was elected, and a general superintendent as deputy, who Theodor Knolle took over. The church law granted the regional bishop completely non-Protestant hierarchical leadership competences over the clergy and church people; the leadership principle replaced the tried and tested Lutheran collegial principle . The new Nazi leadership of the Hanseatic city accepted Schöffel into the Hamburg State Council , a powerless advisory body that replaced the citizenry.

Schöffel campaigned for the church to be reintegrated into the state. As regional bishop, he supported National Socialist racism in politics. The coup of 1933 transformed the Hamburg church into a conformist bishop destroyed country church , what you took the institutional shield and weapon, to oppose an organization of domestication for NS-tick. When Hitler's regime then, in violation of the church regulations , ordered early church elections for all regional churches for July 23, 1933 in order to bring about German-Christian majorities in church parish leadership and synods, German Christians formed and the new church party Gospel and Church , which was also formed in the Hamburg regional church , but here by Hamburg's compliant young reformers Movement dominates, a list connection. The Hamburg church people could therefore not choose between these church parties, but found a unified list on which German Christians took 51% and representatives of the Gospel and Church 49% of the places. The church election in Hamburg degenerated into a sheer farce, because the traditionally fragmented votes of the bourgeois church voters concentrated on a list dominated by German Christians, who won so many more seats than their supporters in the church people.

In the opposition of the Hamburg Confessing Church, Forck and Knolle later found themselves, who, as conservative Lutherans, had carried out the putsch in their regional church in 1933. Due to his intriguing manner, Schöffel had also made opponents among the German Christians, who ensured that he had to resign as bishop on March 1, 1934. Knolle resigned at the beginning of March 1934 because he rejected the merger of the Hamburg regional church with the imperial church . On March 5, they were followed by the German Christian Franz Tügel , who added the general superintendent to his bishopric.

After Hamburg's capitulation in World War II on May 3, 1945, changes also took place in the church districts. Tügel only resigned at the urging of the British occupying forces. Schöffel, who meanwhile acted as a victim of the German Christians and concealed his alliance with them in the church coup, was re-elected bishop on February 27, 1946.

Schöffel explicitly refused to admit guilty to the crimes after 1933 in autumn 1945. In a conversation with Bishop George Kennedy Allen Bell , however, he emphasized that "now the Germans are being held in concentration camps, including often the noblest personalities, without special charges, without interrogation, without legal assistance, without a court judgment," as was once the case by the other side was made. He expressed himself in a similar way to Tügel.

Schöffel promoted the rapid continued employment of pastors burdened by the Nazis and tried to protect them from the Allies in the process of denazification . Eight clergymen who were particularly stressed were retired "for health reasons" and - in contrast to the liberal dissidents of the regional church - retained all spiritual rights and were even promoted to the highest salary level in order to receive the highest possible pension. After only one or two years they were given substitute duties and in the early 1950s they were given permanent jobs again - almost all of the retirements were reversed. The only exception was the young, radical German Christian senior church councilor from 1934 to 1936, Karl Boll (1898–1991), whose re-employment had also been considered and who was now able to retire on full pension. The victims were neither punished nor admitted guilty - in many cases they even remained unreasonable.

Law

The administration of the church in Hamburg was incumbent on the Senate and the citizenship as a college until 1919, and after 1860 the Lutheran senators in the Senate. From 1871 the church council existed as church leadership, in it as a member of the senior elected by the spiritual ministry. From 1923 the church received a new constitution, which replaced the church ordinances of 1870 and 1896 and the emergency ordinance of 1919. From then on, the church leadership was formed by the church council elected by the regional synod with the senior, who was to be elected from the ranks of the main pastors. The Spiritual Ministry only had an advisory role. In 1933 the senior council and church council were eliminated and the hierarchical office of a regional bishop was introduced, assisted by the general superintendent. The administrative authority of the church was from 1933 the bishop's office in Hamburg, the head of which was the bishop. In 1934 all church authority was transferred to the regional bishop, who was responsible for the new regional church office.

While the regional synod was reinstated in its rights in 1946, it remained with the unfriendly church leadership by the regional bishop. In 1959 the senior council regained a role in the church leadership when the senior representative of the regional bishop became.

With the merger in 1977, the main part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Hamburg state was merged into the newly formed district of Hamburg. The previous regional bishop of Hamburg thus became bishop of the newly created district of Hamburg, which also included the previously Hanoverian church district of Harburg and many Holstein parishes in the city area. Even after the merger, the episcopal chancellery was continued with other responsibilities. The senior position was given up.

Superintendents, senior citizens and regional bishops of Hamburg

Superintendent

Seniors

Georg Behrmann in 1905

Regional bishops

Seniors as deputy of the regional bishop

Hymn books

  • Newly augmented Hamburg chant book for the holy use of the public service of God / as well as their Hauß devotions ed. by the Hamburg Ministerio; 1710.
  • New Hamburg hymnbook for public services and domestic devotion , made out by the Hamburg Ministerio. With a noble and wise Raths Special-Privilegio; Hamburg, January 1787.
  • Hamburg hymnbook for public worship and domestic devotion , with a high senate special privilege, Hamburg, from 1843.
  • Hamburg hymnbook , ed. by the church council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Hamburg state in 1912.
  • Hamburg hymnbook. Standard hymn book of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Schleswig-Holstein-Lauenburg, Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Lübeck, Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Eutin ; Hamburg, introduced in 1930.
  • Evangelical church hymn book. Edition for the Evangelical Lutheran regional churches Schleswig-Holstein-Lauenburg, Hamburg, Lübeck and Eutin ; Hamburg, from 1950/53?

literature

  • Irmtraut Tempel: Bishop's office and church leadership in the Lutheran, Reformed and United German regional churches ; Munich: Claudius, 1966, ISBN 3-16-637031-5 , pp. 143-144.
  • Wilhelm Jensen: The Hamburg Church and its clergy since the Reformation ; Hamburg: JJ Augustin , 1958.

Remarks

  1. ^ A b c d e Rainer Postel, "Hamburg at the Time of the Peace of Westphalia", in: 1648, War and Peace in Europe : 3 vol., Klaus Bussmann and Heinz Schilling (eds.), Münster in Westphalia: event company 350 Years of Westphalian Peace, 1998, (= Catalog for the exhibition "1648: War and Peace in Europe" 24 October 1998-17 January 1999 in Münster in Westphalia and Osnabrück), Vol. 1: 'Politics, Religion, Law, and Society ', Pp. 337-343, here p. 341, ISBN 3-88789-128-7 .
  2. ↑ See Die Oberalten , accessed on January 21, 2013.
  3. ↑ a b c d e Rainer Hering, "Bishop's Church between" Führerprinzip "and Lutheranism: The Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Hamburg State and the" Third Reich "", in: Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte (20th Century) , Rainer Hering and Inge Mager ( Ed.), (= Hamburg church history in essays: 5 parts; Tl. 5 / = works on the church history of Hamburg; vol. 26), Hamburg: Hamburg Univ. Press, 2008, pp. 155-200, here p. 163, ISBN 978-3-937816-46-3 .
  4. ↑ See Die Oberalten , accessed on January 21, 2013.
  5. ↑ a b c Rainer Hering, "Bishop's Church between" Führerprinzip "and Lutheranism: The Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Hamburg State and the" Third Reich "", in: Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte (20th Century) , Rainer Hering and Inge Mager (ed. ), (= Hamburg church history in essays: 5 parts; Tl. 5 / = works on the church history of Hamburg; vol. 26), Hamburg: Hamburg Univ. Press, 2008, pp. 155-200, here p. 164, ISBN 978-3-937816-46-3 .
  6. ↑ In most of the regional churches, the Young Reformation Movement welcomed the Nazi takeover of power, but unlike outside of Hamburg, the Young Reformation movement, together with the German Christians, immediately overturned the church order and created a fait accompli. While the Young Reformation Movement became a founding member of the Confessing Church in the Old Prussian regional church, it had led the putsch in Hamburg against the properly elected church leadership. As the stirrup holder of the German Christians, the Young Reformation movement in Hamburg sank into insignificance, but many of its members then joined the emerging group of the Confessing Church in the Hamburg regional church.
  7. ↑ Rainer Hering, "Bishop's Church between" Führerprinzip "and Lutheranism: The Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Hamburg State and the" Third Reich "", in: Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte (20th Century) , Rainer Hering and Inge Mager (eds.), ( = Hamburg church history in essays: 5 parts; Tl. 5 / = works on the church history of Hamburg; vol. 26), Hamburg: Hamburg Univ. Press, 2008, pp. 155-200, here p. 168seq, ISBN 978-3-937816-46-3 .
  8. ↑ Rainer Hering, "Bishop's Church between" Führerprinzip "and Lutheranism: The Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Hamburg State and the" Third Reich "", in: Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte (20th Century) , Rainer Hering and Inge Mager (eds.), ( = Hamburg church history in essays: 5 parts; Tl. 5 / = works on the church history of Hamburg; vol. 26), Hamburg: Hamburg Univ. Press, 2008, pp. 155-200, here p. 168, ISBN 978-3-937816-46-3 .
  9. ↑ a b Rainer Hering: “ Falling to an antichristian demonia. ” P. 358f.
  10. ↑ a b Rainer Hering, "Bishop's Church between" Führerprinzip "and Lutheranism: The Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Hamburg State and the" Third Reich "", in: Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte (20th Century) , Rainer Hering and Inge Mager (eds.) , (= Hamburg church history in essays: 5 parts; Tl. 5 / = works on the church history of Hamburg; vol. 26), Hamburg: Hamburg Univ. Press, 2008, pp. 155-200, here footnote 30 on p. 168, ISBN 978-3-937816-46-3 .
  11. ↑ a b c Rainer Hering, "Bishop's Church between" Führerprinzip "and Lutheranism: The Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Hamburg State and the" Third Reich "", in: Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte (20th Century) , Rainer Hering and Inge Mager (ed. ), (= Hamburg church history in essays: 5 parts; Tl. 5 / = works on the church history of Hamburg; vol. 26), Hamburg: Hamburg Univ. Press, 2008, pp. 155-200, here p. 170, ISBN 978-3-937816-46-3 .
  12. ↑ Rainer Hering: “Falling to an antichristian demon.” P. 359. 361.
  13. ↑ Rainer Hering: “Falling to an anti-Christian demon.” P. 360.
  14. ↑ a b Rainer Hering: “Falling to an antichristian demon.” P. 362.