Evangelical Lutheran Church of France

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The Luther rose : a symbol of the Evangelical Lutheran Churches

The Evangelical Lutheran Church of France ( French Église évangélique luthérienne de France , EELF, until 1906 Église de la Confession d'Augsbourg de France ) was a Lutheran church in France with its seat in Paris . On January 1, 2013, she went to the United Protestant Church of France (Église protestante unie de France) .

history

After the Concordat of 1801 with the Vatican, Napoleon also enacted statutes comparable to members of non-Catholic religious communities (Calvinists, Jews, Lutherans) through the Organic Articles, which provided for semi-state governing bodies ( consistories ). On April 8, 1802, Napoleon decreed the establishment of 27 Lutheran consistories, each of which should preferably comprise several parishes with a total of at least 6,000 souls. The General Consistory (Consistoire générale) based in Strasbourg in Alsace , which numerically forms a center of French Lutheranism, was superordinate to them. The administrative church leadership, the directory (directoire), had its seat in Strasbourg. The Église de la Confession d'Augsbourg de France (Church of the Augsburg Confession of France) received the basic features of its constitution. In the course of the abolition of the monarchy in 1848, the entire board of directors was forced to resign because of anti-republicanism.

With the growth of the population and migration (especially for the purpose of income), Lutheran congregations also emerged in former diaspora areas; accordingly, the number of Lutheran consistory was increased to 40 on March 26, 1852, and the general consistory was renamed the Oberkonsistorium (consistoire supérieur).

The annexation of Alsace and parts of Lorraine after the Franco-German War from 1870 to 1871 brought 286,000 French Lutherans and their church leaders to Germany. The 45,000 Lutherans remaining in France, soon increased to 80,000 by Lutheran optants from the annexed area and other migrants, had to reorganize.

Directory and senior consistory in Strasbourg limited their jurisdiction to the Lutheran parishes in Alsace and the Lorraine district and remained the church leadership of the newly founded Church of the Augsburg Confession of Alsace and Lorraine (EPCAAL) . The only faculty of Protestant theology in the country was in Strasbourg. Following an appeal by Frédéric Lichtenberger in February 1871 - after much back and forth - a faculty for Lutheran and Reformed theology was founded in Paris in 1877, at which many Alsatian optants taught. A synod met in Paris in 1872 to establish new governing bodies. In 1879 two regional synodal associations were founded, each with their headquarters in Paris and Montbéliard . This city and its surroundings (formerly the County of Mömpelgard ) formed with 30,000 Lutherans in what was then France, the only area with a larger Lutheran population. The overarching national church parliament was called the General Synod.

Through the French law separating church and state in 1905, all recognized religious communities in France lost their corporate status as établissement public du culte , which grew out of Napoléon's concordat statutes. In 1906 the church changed its name from Église de la Confession d'Augsbourg to Église évangélique luthérienne . When Alsace-Lorraine fell back to France in 1919, the areas of responsibility remained separate. The EELF only includes parishes in French territory, which is subject to secularism. EPCAAL, on the other hand, is strictly limited to Alsace and the Moselle department, which did not belong to France in 1905 and where the concordat corporate status therefore continues to apply. A merger of EELF and EPCAAL would only be possible if the latter gave up their status voluntarily.

From 1940 to 1944 there were contacts between French and German representatives of the Evangelical Protestant churches in Paris, but these were not very successful under the occupation.

Members, memberships and unions

The church was founded in 1872. In 2012 around 40,000 people were members of the EELF; Joël Dautheville was the last church president. The EELF was a member of the Conference of European Churches , the Protestant Federation of France and the Lutheran World Federation .

In May 2012, the Synods of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of France and the Reformed Church of France in Belfort decided to merge to form the United Protestant Church of France (Église protestante unie de France). The first Synod of the United Church met in Lyon from May 9-12, 2013 .

Church leadership

The church leadership was initially with the President of the Directory ( French président du Directoire ) and until 1871 they and their vice-presidents were members of the Upper Consistory in Strasbourg, with the President of the Directory always presiding over the Upper Consistory. Here is a selection of presidents:

  • 1802–1826: Philippe Frédéric Kern (1746–1826)
  • 1826–1831: Bernard-Frédéric de Turckheim (1752–1831)
  • 1831-1848:
  • 1848-1850:
  • 1850–1871: Théodore Braun, resignation after the cession of Strasbourg to Germany

structure

Paris inspection

The Paris inspection (inspection de Paris) comprised 21 parishes (with 22 churches), of which nine (with ten churches) were in Paris and ten in the Paris agglomeration (Banlieue parisienne), as well as one each in Lyon and Nice . The number of parishioners for the inspection was about 5,000.

Parishes in the Paris inspection

in Paris
  • Paroisse Saint-Paul de Montmartre. 90 boulevard Barbès. Paris, 18th arrondissement
  • Paroisse de l'Ascension. 47 rue Dulong. Paris 17th arrondissement
  • Paroisse Saint-Pierre. 55 rue Manin. Paris 19th arrondissement
  • Paroisse de la Rédemption. 16 rue Chauchat. Paris 9th arrondissement
  • Paroisse des Billettes . 24 rue des Archives. Paris 4th arrondissement
  • Paroisse Saint-Jean. 147 rue de Grenelle. Paris 7th arrondissement
  • Paroisse Bon-Secours. 20 rue Titon. Paris 11th arrondissement
  • Paroisse de la Trinité - Saint-Marcel:
    • Église de la Trinité. 172 boulevard Vincent-Auriol. Paris 13th arrondissement
    • Église évangélique Saint-Marcel. 24, rue Pierre-Nicole. Paris 5th arrondissement
  • Paroisse de la Résurrection. 6 rue Quinault. Paris 15th arrondissement
in the greater Paris area outside the city
  • Paroisse Martin Luther. 29 boulevard Carnot. Saint-Denis (93200)
  • Paroisse de Courbevoie - La Garenne Colombes. 12-14 rue Kilford. Courbevoie (92400)
  • Paroisse de Suresnes. 3 avenue d'Estournelles de Constant. Suresnes (92150)
  • Paroisse Saint-Luc. Place du Général-Leclerc. Vanves (92170)
  • Paroisse de Bourg-la-Reine. 26 rue Ravon. Bourg-la-Reine (92340)
  • Paroisse Saint-Marc de Massy. Place Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Massy (91300)
  • Paroisse Saint-Marc de Noisy-Le-Sec. 47 avenue Marceau. Noisy-le-Sec (93130)
  • Paroisse Saint-Etienne. 4 rue de Chanzy. Le Perreux (94170)
  • Paroisse de Noisy-le-Grand. 79 rue de Malnoue. Noisy-le-Grand (93160)
  • Paroisse Saint-Matthieu. 15 Rue du Plessis. Pontault-Combault (77340)
in Lyon
  • Paroisse de Lyon. 12, rue Fénelon. Lyon 6th arrondissement
in Nice
  • Paroisse la Transfiguration - Nice - Cote d'Azur. 4 rue Melchior de Vogüé. Nice (06000)

Inspection Mömpelgard

The Mömpelgard inspection (inspection de Montbéliard) comprised 24 parishes with around 30,000 parishioners.

Parishes in the Mömpelgard inspection

  • Paroisse d'Audincourt
  • Paroisses de Beaucourt et Vandoncourt-Dasle
  • Paroisse de Belfort-Giromagny
  • Paroisse de Bethoncourt-Bussurel-Vyans le Val
  • Paroisse du Châtelot
  • Paroisse des Vosges Saônoises
  • Paroisse de Mandeure
  • Paroisse du Mont-Bart
  • Paroisse de Montbeliard
  • Paroisse de Montécheroux
  • Paroisse du Mont-Vaudois
  • Paroisse du Plateau de Blamont
  • Paroisse de Pont-de-Roide
  • Paroisse de Seloncourt-Bondeval
  • Paroisse de Sochaux-Charmont
  • Paroisse de Valentigney
  • Paroisse de Val d'Allan (Fesches-Dampierre-Allenjoie et Etupes-Exincourt)
  • Paroisse de la Vallée du Rupt
  • Paroisse du Vallon
  • Paroisse de Vesoul

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c d F. G. Dreyfus: The French Luthertum ; on: Virtual Museum of Protestantism: theological information, discussions, Protestant tradition , accessed on February 26, 2013.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h Protestantism in Alsace . On: Virtual Museum of Protestantism: Theological Information, Discussions, Protestant Tradition , accessed February 26, 2013.
  3. ^ Ludger Tewes : Wehrmacht and Evangelical Church in Paris during the German occupation 1940–1944. In: Jürgen Bärsch, Hermann-Josef Scheidgen, Gustav-Siewerth-Akademie (ed.): Theologie und Hochschule, 5th Cologne 2019, ISBN 978-3-945777-00-8 , pp. 557–610.
  4. ^ France: Reformed and Lutherans unite. idea notification on the website of the German Evangelical Alliance from May 21, 2012.
  5. ↑ a b Unions régionales ( Memento of the original from July 4, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , on: EELF website , accessed December 30, 2011.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / eelf.org
  6. ↑ EELF Régionale ( Memento of the original dated February 8, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed December 30, 2011. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.eelf-franchecomte.org