Evangelical Lutheran Church in Georgia

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The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Georgia (ELKG) is an independent regional church within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Central Asia (ELKRAS). The bishopric is Tbilisi .

history

The Georgian Evangelical Lutheran communities mostly go back to Caucasian Germans who left Württemberg between 1817 and 1819 . Blooming communities emerged in neighborhoods between locals and Germans characterized by tolerance and friendship. In World War I hostilities began and the Georgian Germans were declared enemies. The anti-church course of the Bolsheviks did the rest, which culminated in the Stalinist terror. Churches were closed and destroyed, all kinds of religious activity were banned, pastors and parishioners were deliberately persecuted, arrested, banned and even killed.

Pastor Richard Mayer , who had been in Tbilisi for 32 years, was arrested in 1931, exiled to Siberia and shot in Moscow in February 1933 . Two of his children also fell victim to the terror. His son Herbert was shot near Tbilisi in July 1937, his daughter Erika was killed in exile in September 1937. The rest of the family was deported to Kazakhstan . After Mayer's arrest, there was no more official church life in Tbilisi. The church buildings were expropriated and demolished by prisoners of war in 1946.

The Christian faith in its Lutheran tradition lived on in the underground despite the prohibition. Small community groups held out, without clergy, but with committed believers, until the time of perestroika .

As early as 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Union in Georgia, Lutherans of predominantly German descent had gathered sporadically. Gert Hummel came across these community groups when he was working as a representative of Saarland University in Tbilisi. On the occasion of his retirement as a university professor in 1998, he sold his house and used the proceeds to build a church in Tbilisi with a community center, old people's home and diaconal wards. On October 26, 1997, he inaugurated the new Lutheran Church of Reconciliation on the site of the former German cemetery.

In 1998 Hummel moved with his wife to Tbilisi and took over the local parish as pastor. A year later, the Georgian regional synod elected him bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Georgia.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Georgia is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Central Asia .

Six pastors and one lecturer work in the Church in Georgia. It includes seven registered municipalities with around 700 members:

Church of Reconciliation Community Center in Tbilisi

The building of the Church of Reconciliation in Tbilisi

The ecclesiastical center of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Georgia is located in the Church of Reconciliation in Tbilisi (Tbilisi 380002, Terenti-Granel-Str. 15). In addition to the assembly rooms, the building also houses a retirement home and a diaconal ward. There is also the seat of the bishop, who is responsible for the spiritual direction of the church. The decision-making body is the regional synod. Services are celebrated in Russian, German and Georgian.

The grave of the important Polish architect Aleksander Szymkiewicz is still in the cemetery .

gallery

  • Grave plaque by Aleksander Szymkiewicz

  • Memorial plaque for the builder of the church Gert Hummel

  • Stone tablet for Gert Hummel 2.jpg

  • Bishop Markus Schoch

Bishops

The Georgian bishop is a member of the ELCRAS Bishops Council. In his regional church he is the spiritual director.

Facility

The Georgian Church has its own Evangelical Lutheran Diaconal Service. The chairman is Christiane Hummel.

Partner church

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Georgia maintains partnership relationships with the German Evangelical Church in Württemberg .

literature

  • Nugzar Papuashvili: From the history of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Georgia , Martin Luther Verlag, Erlangen 2019, ISBN 978-3-87513-196-3 .

Web links

 Wikinews: Bishop Andreas Stökl died  - message

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lutheran Service , Volume 46, 2010, Issue 1
  2. ↑ Lutheran Service , Volume 51, 2015, No. 4
  3. ^ Head of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Georgia
  4. ^ German theologian appointed as bishop in Georgia , abendblatt.de, message from December 14, 2009.
  5. ↑ Lutheran Service , Volume 53, 2017, Volume 4, p. 6