Evangelical Church of Luxembourg

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The Evangelical Church of Luxembourg ( French Église Protestante du Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ) is the oldest and largest Protestant church in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg . Developed from the Prussian-Dutch military garrison, the former military parish under Grand Duke Adolph became the Evangelical Church of Luxembourg and the Trinity Church at the same time the court church of the evangelical monarchs. The confessional status of this regional church is unified. The official languages ​​in Luxembourg (Luxembourgish, German, French) are used in church life, as is Dutch. English is important in ecumenical cooperation with other congregations abroad and free churches. A special feature of church life are regular bilingual services and the international alliance services, in which five to six languages ​​are used.

history

Until the French Revolution, Protestants and Jews could only settle in the Grand Duchy to a very limited extent and only in Luxembourg City. There was a sustained influx of Protestants only after 1815 under the rule of the Protestant William I of Orange-Nassau from the Dutch house of Orange-Nassau and when Luxembourg became a federal fortress with a Prussian garrison . In 1817 the Evangelical (Military) Congregation was given the Trinity Church next to the Cathedral of Our Lady as a garrison church. The Protestant garrison pastor (mostly from the Evangelical Church of Saxony-Weimar) also supplied the small civil parish that had existed since 1842. After the fortress garrison withdrew in 1867, the first local parishes were founded. It was only with the beginning of industrialization , especially in the south of the country, near Lorraine , that more and more foreigners with evangelical confessions came to the country, which led to an upswing and the establishment of further churches: Dommeldange, Redange, Oberkorn, Esch, but also in Ettelbrück, Diekirch and Wiltz organized Protestant parish life. In 1885 there were 1,100 Protestants in the Grand Duchy. The Protestant Grand Duke Adolph I , who until 1866 had been summus episcopus of the United Evangelical Church in Nassau , brought about the establishment of a United Luxembourg consistorial church. With the publication of the statutes of the evangelical consistory in the legal gazette, the church was recognized by the state in 1894 and was given legal capacity by parliamentary resolution.

Church life grew rapidly up to the First World War , over 6000 Evangelicals were counted throughout the country, in Esch / Alzette the Evangelical Church of Luxembourg built its own church with community rooms and a parish apartment with great financial efforts with the help of the Gustav-Adolf-Werk . In the time between the world wars, which was associated with a strong loss of membership for the church due to emigration, and later under the German occupation, tensions between the consistory of Luxembourg City and the parish in Esch / Alzette, which is close to the German Christians , grew . In the period that followed, this led to a conscious distancing and later separation of the Ev. Parish Esch / Alzette from the Evangelical Church of Luxembourg. The population of Luxembourg had suffered greatly under the German occupation, and under the impression of a noticeable anti-German attitude in the post-war period, the Evangelical Church of Luxembourg tried above all not to be identified with the German national attitude of the Escher parish and its pastor Fuhr .

The court preacher A. Jacoby, who comes from Alsace and is highly respected in the country, as church president of the Evangelical National Church of Luxembourg took a clearly negative stance against the annexation of Luxembourg by Germany and has the independence of the Evangelical Church of Luxembourg from the German Imperial Church and the Rhenish Church Church provinces successfully preserved. Nevertheless, after the war one was confronted with the equation "German = Prussian = Evangelical = Nazi" and efforts were now made in the church leadership of the Evangelical Church of Luxembourg to create a clearer profile as the "Luxembourg" church and accordingly distanced themselves more from their own " Prussian "and" German "past. In Esch / Alzette, under the impression of increasing alienation from the Evangelical Church and a multiple discontinuity in personal, ideological, theological and financial terms, a different, own identity was sought and under the keyword "Reformed" a new, legally independent from the regional church Parish church created. At the beginning of the 1980s, the government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg promised to take over the salaries of the Protestant Reformed Church of Luxembourg HB located in Esch / Alzette and regulated the mutual relations in a separate agreement. From the parish that once belonged to the Evangelical Church of Luxembourg, the state had now created an autonomous second Evangelical "regional church", which would subsequently claim the same members, parish registers and real estate, which was the reason for further conflicts between the regional church and its own now legally independent parish of Esch / Alzette was placed.

With the increasing internationalization of Luxembourg as a location for EU institutions and financial service providers, some Protestant congregations abroad emerged in the 1960s and 1970s. The interest of the Evangelical Church of Luxembourg in these newly formed congregations was rather low against the historical background described, and so these congregations initially developed their own activities independently. It was not until the late 1990s that, under the influence of the ecumenically minded Pastors Peutz and Pastors Imbert and interested parishioners, a working group of Protestant churches and parishes in Luxembourg was founded with the Alliance. Two of these foreign congregations have meanwhile become parishes of the Evangelical Church of Luxembourg and represent an essential factor for the increasing dynamism and internationalization of the Evangelical Church of Luxembourg. In this small microchurch the Leuenberg Agreement Community is realized every day.

organization

The Evangelical Church of Luxembourg consists of three parishes: Luxembourg City with annexes in Ettelbrück and Wiltz , as well as the Paroisse Francophone and the Dutch parish. The parishes are administered autonomously by the associated presbyteries (parish councils). A consistory elected for six years each leads the church as a whole and reports annually to the general assembly. Chef de culte (church president) is the titular pastor elected by the consistory and the general assembly. Two pastors and a secretary work full-time for the church; these staff positions are financed from the public budget in accordance with a corresponding agreement with the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.

Ecumenism and Memberships

The Evangelical Church of Luxembourg is a member of the Alliance of Protestant Churches of Luxembourg, a working group of the Evangelical Churches (parishes) of Luxembourg, in which the individual parishes of the Evangelical Church of Luxembourg: Luxembourg City, Paroisse Francophone, Dutch parish, but also the Danish, Icelandic and Finnish congregations as well as the All Nations Church in Luxembourg are members in order to celebrate church services together in ecumenical fellowship, to conduct public relations, adult education, youth work, social work and mission. The Alliance is a founding member of the Council of Christian Churches in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (1997), in which Roman Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox and Anglican churches work together, and it is a member of the Conference of European Churches (CEC) and the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe (CPCE , formerly Leuenberg Church Fellowship), located there in the regional group of the Conference of Churches on the Rhine.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Klaus Loetsch: Between many chairs, History of Protestantism in Luxembourg (PDF; 851 kB), p. 36.
  2. ^ Protestant Church of Luxembourg - History.
  3. ↑ Klaus Loetsch: Between Many Chairs, History of Protestantism in Luxemburg (PDF; 851 kB), p. 37.
  4. ↑ Prof. Dr. Markus Porsche-Ludwig, Prof. Dr. Jürgen Bellers: Religion in Luxemburg ( Memento of the original from October 17, 2013 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.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / bautz.de
  5. ↑ PDF with text of the State Treaty between Government and Evang. Church of Luxembourg (PDF; 156 kB)

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