Evangelical Lutheran Church in Italy

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Italy ( CELI for short , Italian : Chiesa Evangelica Luterana in Italia , also ELKI) is an amalgamation of 15 Evangelical Lutheran congregations in Italy .

Luther rose

Venice Lutheran Church, formerly Scola dell'Angelo Custode

Lutheran Church , Florence

Evangelical Church AB, Trieste

Evangelical Christ Church , Bolzano

history

Since the Reformation in Italy ultimately had no lasting effect and the Roman Catholic denomination remained the state religion nationwide , Lutheran services in Italy in the early modern period were only possible in the extraterritorial representations of foreign Lutheran states in the capitals of the Italian states. It was only in the course of the Italian unification and the resulting alienation between the Kingdom of Italy and the rest of the Papal States that Protestant communities outside the protection of diplomatic missions became possible. Since the congregations were very small, they had no legal capacity of their own and were affiliated with Protestant churches abroad, in particular the Prussian Church of the Old Prussian Union , the Austrian Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession and the also Austrian but Reformed Evangelical Church of the Helvetic Confession in Austria . In addition to Germans and Swiss, the communities also included Scandinavians and French .

The fifteen municipalities of the union came into being at different times, many as foreign municipalities of German-speaking foreigners:

1650 Venice , the community goes back to structures from the time of the Reformation and was founded by German merchants.
1778 Trieste
1819 Rome
1826 Naples : A first church building became possible when Giuseppe Garibaldi took Naples on September 7, 1860. The community was initially German and French . At the general assembly on January 24, 1866, the two parts were institutionally separated. A minority of German speakers wanted to join the community in the Prussian uniate regional church , but this did not succeed. In 1871, a Swiss member of the German-speaking community demanded that general church prayer should be formulated in such a way that it was not only suitable for Reich Germans.
1850 Milan
1861 Meran ( Christ Church built 1883–1885)
1870 San Remo
1889 Bozen ( Christ Church built 1906–1908)
1896 Genoa
1899 Florence ( Chiesa Luterana built in 1901)

Since 1880, most of the then existing Lutheran congregations in Italy worked together. In 1949 these congregations - with the exception of that of Meran, which only joined in 2008 - merged to form the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Italy . In 1952, three communities on the Gulf of Naples joined the CELI: Torre del Greco , Santa Maria la Bruna and Torre Annunziata , which later merged under the name of the latter. In 1966 the parish of Ispra - Varese was established in connection with the establishment of the European School in Varese as the second Lutheran parish in Lombardy . In 1991 a parish association for Sicily with a parish in Catania joined and in 2009 the parishes Verona - Gardone and Turin . There is a community building project in Bari .

It was not until 1993 that a State Church Treaty was concluded between the Republic of Italy and the CELI. This now also granted CELI the mandate tax (0.8% of income tax ), which improved its financial situation.

church

It has around 7,000 members and 18 pastors. Its seat is in Rome. The community structure is characterized by the distribution of relatively few members over large community areas. They are “extreme diaspora communities ”. While originally German-speaking foreigners made up a significant part of the communities, in the period since the Second World War the weight has shifted more and more to community members who emigrated to Italy as spouses or other reasons and their descendants. The church is too small to train clergy on its own. It therefore engages pastors from Germany, Switzerland, but also Italy. The 15 congregations have regular services at 26 locations, some with guest status in Waldensian churches . A large area for the communities is the pastoral care of holidaymakers , which is provided in 16 locations.

The ELCI has given itself a constitution , the currently valid one from 2004. The ELCI is synodal . At the community level there is a community assembly and a community board . The ELCI itself has a synod that meets once a year and takes fundamental decisions. The consistory , the executive body, is elected by the synod and consists of three lay people and two pastors . The leading clergyman is a dean , currently Pastor Heiner Bludau.

The ELCI is a member of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), the Community of Evangelical Churches in Europe (CPCE), the Conference of European Churches (KEK) and the Federation of Evangelical Churches in Italy (FCEI).