Reformed Church Aargau

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Reformed Church Aargau
Logo of the Reformed Church of Aargau
Logo of the Reformed Church of Aargau
General
Belief evangelical reformed
distribution Kanton Aargau
founding
Establishment date 1803
numbers
Members 157,809 on December 31, 2019
Communities 75
Others
Website www.ref-ag.ch
The «House of the Reformed» on the day of inauguration
The shell of the new seat of the regional church
former seat of the Reformed Church

The Reformed Church of Aargau (the official name "Evangelical Reformed Church of the Canton of Aargau" has not been used in the word mark since 2003) is the Reformed Church in the Swiss canton of Aargau . The regional church is a member of the Evangelical Reformed Church in Switzerland and the Conference of Churches on the Rhine .

history

The origins of the regional church go back to 1803, when the former Bernese Unteraargau , the free offices , the county of Baden and the previously Austrian Fricktal were united to form the canton of Aargau. The new canton had around 130,000 inhabitants, 70,000 of whom were Reformed. According to the view of the time, the state could neither exist without the church, nor the church without the state. The Reformed Church has submitted to the state constitution and recognized the overall supervision of the state. In return, the state protected the church and ensured a decent living and the pastor's apartment. The pastors thus became officials of the state and the parishes had no say in the parish election. The authorities elected a reformed church council of eleven, which acted as a supervisory and control authority and was able to formulate applications for the attention of the small council. First, the state of Aargau tried to do justice to both denominations according to the principle of parity , i.e. equal rights for the churches. Deliberately Catholic or deliberately Reformed statements were not welcome. For example, the government rejected the invitation from the Canton of Zurich to celebrate the Reformation anniversary in 1819.

The way to independence

Already in the Bernese time there were two parish chapters in Bern's Unteraargau (Aarau-Zofingen and Brugg-Lenzburg). By resolution of the Aargau government, these were combined into a general chapter and met for the first time in Aarau in June 1821. All clergy and three government councilors admitted to the Aargau ministry belonged to the chapter. From 1824 there was a growing desire to include laypeople in the General Chapter and to grant the Church more independence, which was initially felt to be hostile to the canton's constitution. Gradually, however, the church was able to achieve success. In 1852, at the request of the General Chapter, the parishes were given the right to submit a three-man proposal to the government when electing a parish. In 1858 parishes were allowed to send lay members to the general chapter, and in 1864 parishes were given the right to elect a parish. With a law of March 2, 1866, the Grand Council approved the election of a synod. The elections, scheduled and carried out by the civil authorities, took place on October 21, and the synod, consisting of 87 lay people and 51 pastors, met for the first time on December 18, 1866. The Aargau church has thus begun the path to greater autonomy and independence. With the constitutional amendment of 1885, the idea of ​​a free church in a free state was taken up and the financial relationship between state and church began to be disentangled. The beneficiaries and church property were removed from the general state property, and in 1893 the parishes were recognized under public law so that they could act as independent negotiating partners with the state. In the same year the Synodal Committee became the Reformed Council of Churches. Back then, the state deliberately did not want a strong central church administration, so that tax law and many other competencies are still not with the regional church, but with the parishes.

With a synodal decision of November 21, 1949, the office of church clerk was also opened to women, although the decision only came into effect on September 3, 1952 with the approval of the Grand Council of the Canton of Aargau . The women received the active right to vote and vote through a resolution of the Synod on June 30, 1960.

The seat of the regional church was on Augustin-Kellerstrasse in Aarau from 1973 to mid-October 2011 and has since been located in the new “House of the Reformed” on Stritengässli.

Women lead church

A historical peculiarity was the election of Sylvia Michel as Church Council President in 1980 . She was the first woman to head a church in Europe .

structure

The Cantonal Constitution (Art. 109 ff.) Guarantees the Reformed Regional Church of Aargau legal independence as a public institution . This is characterized by the designation "regional church". The parishes are also institutions under public law and are therefore entitled to levy taxes from their members in order to be able to fulfill their mandate. The public law status is linked to a few conditions:

  • The parishes and the regional church must be built up democratically,
  • its members can appeal against decisions of the church authorities and
  • the parishes and the regional church must give a public account of the use of their financial resources (annual report, with invoice).

The basic legal enactments of the Reformed Regional Church Aargau are the organizational statute , which functions as the church constitution, and the church order, which specifies the statute.

Community autonomy

The six deaneries (in a similar color) and the 75 parishes (each in the same color)

The individual parishes have a strong position in Aargau. Community autonomy gives them a great deal of leeway in terms of administration and organization as well as in determining their own priorities. Within the framework of the organizational statute and the church order, they are independent and each parish is a corporation under public law.

Dean's offices

The parishes of the regional church are divided into six deaneries :

  • Deanery Aarau (red)
  • Deanery Baden (purple)
  • Dean's office Brugg (green)
  • Deanery Kulm (yellow)
  • Deanery Lenzburg (blue - in the southeast)
  • Deanery Zofingen (blue - in the southwest)

management

Synod

Just as the parish assembly is the highest organ at the parish level, so it is the synod at the regional church level, which is elected by all church voters. Depending on the size of the parish, it elects two to seven representatives. As a rule, the synod meets twice a year, approves the budget and the bill and elects the church council for the new term at the end of a legislative period. There are five synod groups that prepare the business of the synod in their own group meetings. A synod fraction can be formed at any time by at least five registered members. At the moment there are the following parliamentary groups: parliamentary group Church and World, parliamentary group and association living church, evangelical parliamentary group, free Christianity parliamentary group and the non-attached parliamentary group. In the legislative period 2019–2022, the synod will be chaired by Lucien Baumgaertner .

List of previous synod presidents (since 1991)

Church council

The church council, which conducts the affairs of the regional church on behalf of the synod, must consist of a majority of non-ordained members. It consists of a full-time president and six honorary members. The Church Council for the legislative period from 2019 to 2022 consists of the following members: Christoph Weber-Berg (President), Regula Wegmann (Vice President), Martin Keller, Beat Maurer, Catherine Berger-Meier, Rolf Fäs and Gerhard Bütschi. They were confirmed or newly elected at the Synod meeting on June 6, 2018 in Hirschthal .

List of previous church council presidents

Community leadership based on partnership

The responsibility for the management of the parishes in the cantonal church is shared as 'parish leadership in partnership' with church maintenance, the pastoral office and the diaconal services as equal partners. The equality of diaconal services with the parish office is shown u. a. that deacons are ordained under certain conditions.

Employees

Parish chapter

After the election of the first synod in 1866, the previous general chapter (see above) was dissolved and the parish chapter was created, which has a permanent place in the organization of the regional church to this day. All clergy accepted into the Aargau ministry belong to the chapter. At the same time it represents the parish in the Swiss Reformed Parish Association . The chapter is headed by President Rudolf Gebhard.

Diaconate chapter

With the equality of the social deacons with the pastors in Aargau, the diaconate chapter was brought into being in January 1993. It is headed by the President Maria Trost-Hansemann.

media

The magazine reformiert is published in Aargau together with the Bündner , Zurich and Bern regional churches . which replaced the former “Aargauer Kirchenbote” in 2008. The Aargau edition has a circulation of just over 160,000.

Well-known pastors and theologians with an Aargau "past"

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Reformed Church Aargau - Entries and exits 2019
  2. ^ Organization statute . In: ref-ag.ch. January 1, 1970. Retrieved December 27, 2018 .
  3. ^ Church regulations of the Evangelical Reformed Church of the Canton of Aargau (KO). Retrieved December 27, 2018 .
  4. ↑ Church regulations §6
  5. ↑ Church regulations §7
  6. ^ Reformed Press of August 28, 2009, p. 1
  7. ↑ Heiner Studer's website
  8. ↑ Annual report of the regional church, p. 25 (PDF; 203 kB)
  9. ↑ Profile Franziska Zehnder ( Memento from February 4, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  10. ↑ Report of the Inaugural Synodersitzung on January 14, 2015 Aarau
  11. ↑ Report on the constituent synod meeting on January 16, 2019 in Aarau

Web links

Commons : Reformierte Landeskirche Aargau  - Collection of images, videos and audio files