Evangelical Church in Frankfurt am Main

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The Evangelical Regional Church Frankfurt am Main (until 1922 Evangelical Church in the consistorial district Frankfurt am Main ) was a regional church of the German Empire . It went back to the church of the former Free City of Frankfurt , but existed as an independent regional church only from 1922 to 1933.

After the National Socialist seizure of power in 1933, it united under pressure with the Evangelical Church in Nassau and the Evangelical Church in Hesse to form the Evangelical Church in Nassau-Hesse . In 1947 she was finally in the Protestant Church in Hesse and Nassau , where the city of Frankfurt am Main part of today provost Rhein-Main is.

history

From the Reformation to 1806 - The Church of the Free Imperial City of Frankfurt

The Lutheran Reformation was introduced in Frankfurt in 1533 by the council . After 1554, Reformed religious refugees found acceptance in the city, to which a German-Reformed and a French-Reformed congregation in Frankfurt go back. Despite reprisals from the Lutheran council and the Lutheran clergy, both congregations were preserved. It was not until 1787 that they were allowed to hold their own services in their prayer houses; With the abdication of the last Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation in 1806 and the end of the Free Imperial City , the Reformed and Catholic denominations were given full equality with the Lutheran Church.

From 1666 to 1686, the important Lutheran Pietist Philipp Jakob Spener worked in Frankfurt . As a senior he presided over the city's pastors. In 1675 he wrote his reform pia desideria in Frankfurt , which became one of the most important programmatic writings of Lutheran Pietism. After the formation of pietist-separatist circles ( Saalhofpietists ), Spener had to leave the city in 1686.

1815 to 1866 - The Church of the Free City of Frankfurt

In 1815 the Free City of Frankfurt regained its independence. Their constitution, the constitutional supplementary act of 1816, made all churches subject to the city senate, which formed a Lutheran consistory in 1817 and a reformed consistory in 1817 as supervisory bodies . The remuneration of the twelve Lutheran clergy and the upkeep of the six Protestant churches and the church schools were regulated by the endowment agreement issued in 1830 .

The Evangelical Lutheran community initially consisted of around 28,000 people. It extended over the entire city area and had six preaching sites where twelve clergymen paid municipal salaries worked. According to the municipal code, anyone who had Frankfurt citizenship , was baptized and confirmed was a member of the Lutheran congregation . There was no fixed allocation of parishes , for example according to residence, in Frankfurt; instead, each family adhered to a church or a preacher of their choice. Popular pastors like the eminent preacher Anton Kirchner had good church attendance, a high number of casuals and a rich income in collections and fees, while others were far less used. Overall, only two-thirds of the children were baptized, half of the marriages were clerical and around 40% of the deceased were buried in church.

The approximately 2000 members of the two Reformed parishes, the German Reformed and the French Reformed , formed their own Evangelical Reformed consistory in 1820. According to the constitutional supplementary act, the congregations had to cover all the costs of their religious cult according to the contract from their own funds without competition from the city ararii and were therefore not included in the endowment of 1830.

Since 1817 there was a communion communion between Lutherans and Reformed, but unlike in Prussia, there was no church union . Both consistories existed independently side by side.

In 1848 the Frankfurt National Assembly took place in Frankfurt . The church had made the Paulskirche available for this. As a result of the St. Paul's Church Assembly, general religious freedom was established in Frankfurt; Within a short time, a Catholic Apostolic (1851), a Baptist (1851), a Methodist (1851) and an Old Lutheran congregation (1851) were founded.

1867 to 1918 - The Prussian regional church

In 1866 Frankfurt lost its state independence and was annexed by Prussia . The city was added to the Wiesbaden administrative district in the Hesse-Nassau province . In lengthy negotiations, however, the city was largely able to maintain its ecclesiastical independence; only the communities Niedererlenbach and Dortelweil, which had been ceded to the Grand Duchy of Hesse, also left the Frankfurt Church. The old church constitution remained, but the sovereign church regiment passed to the King of Prussia and the Prussian state church law also became valid for Frankfurt. A Prussian law of March 13, 1882 stipulated that the king had to appoint the chairman of the consistory.

As since 1533, twelve Evangelical Lutheran pastors continued to work at the six Evangelical Lutheran churches. The German Evangelical Reformed and the French Evangelical Reformed congregations existed as personal church congregations . In addition, the Evangelical Lutheran parishes of the former Frankfurt villages Bonames , Bornheim , Hausen , Niederrad , Niederursel and Oberrad belonged to the consistorial district of Frankfurt. These communities did not have their own administration and no tax law. The sluggishness of the Frankfurt Church was particularly evident in the fact that for a long time it was not possible to establish new parishes in the rapidly growing districts around the historic city center. The first new church in the Westend was the Christ Church (1883), later also the Immanuel Church in the Nordend (1903) , on the private initiative of the Frankfurt Evangelical Church Aid Association and the Foundation for the Church Supply of the Outskirts . The parish still exists today as an independent personal parish of Christ-Immanuel .

On September 27, 1899, Frankfurt received a new church constitution with the parish and synodal order for the Protestant parishes of the consistorial district of Frankfurt am Main . The inner-city congregation with six churches became six Evangelical Lutheran congregations: the Paulsgemeinde comprised the southern old town , the Weißfrauen congregation comprised the western old town, the Bahnhofsviertel and Gutleutviertel , the Katharinengemeinde the Westend, the Petersgemeinde the Nordend, the Nikolaigemeinde the Ostend and the Dreikönigsgemeinde Sachsenhausen .

From December 1, 1899, the Lutheran and the two Reformed congregations were administered for the first time by a joint "Royal Consistory" without a denominational union . The two Reformed and Lutheran parishes of Frankfurt and its former villages became a Prussian regional church with joint administration (administrative union). Other Protestant congregations (Old Lutherans, Baptists and Methodists) did not belong to the regional church. The king appointed the administrative lawyer Walter Ernst , who was already president of the Nassau consistory in Wiesbaden, to be the consistorial president.

Within a few years, new congregations quickly emerged in the growing outskirts: in 1901 the Luther congregation in Nordend, in 1902 the Matthäus congregation in Westend, in 1903 the Lukas congregation in Sachsenhausen and in 1909 the Friedensgemeinde in Gallus . In 1909 the Nikolaigemeinde, which had grown to 23,000 members, received a new church, the neo-Romanesque Nikolaikirche am Zoo . In 1911 the Frankfurt Diakonissenhaus received the status of an institutional community . Gradually, most of the congregations built their own parish hall , the first being the Luther parish .

While the parish order improved the ecclesiastical care of the Evangelical Lutheran population, the small regional church with the synodal order issued at the same time received an unusually complex administrative organization with no fewer than five synods . The complicated construction arose because, on the one hand, the right to levy the newly introduced church tax lay with all parishes, and on the other hand, the existing rights of the Lutheran municipality vis-à-vis the city of Frankfurt, e.g. B. from the endowment, had to be perceived by a separate community association. The six new Lutheran parishes that arose from the former township therefore formed an Evangelical-Lutheran town synod , and the two reformed an Evangelical-Reformed town synod . The city synods administered the property belonging to the previous community, exercised rights vis-à-vis the city and supervised the evangelical foundations and schools. There was also a united Lutheran and Reformed city synod and a Lutheran district synod in which the former rural communities united. The highest organ of the regional church was the district synod , whose tasks included the maintenance of church order in doctrine, cult and constitution and the participation in church legislation . The district synod consisted of 60 members, 40 of whom were delegated by the Lutheran town synod, 20 by the reformed town synod and 10 by the district synod. The district synod consisted of at least twelve Lutheran and two Reformed pastors.

The church tax was first collected for the 1906 financial year. Until 1920, the assessment rate was a uniform 15% on the state-assessed income tax , the top tax rate of which, however, was only 4% on all incomes over 100,000 marks annually.

1919 to 1933 - Evangelical Church in Frankfurt am Main

The November Revolution in 1918 brought the resignation of all the reigning princes of Germany and the end of the country's glorious church government . In Prussia, Adolph Hoffmann became an energetic representative of the church exit movement as the new minister of education, who on November 16, 1918 declared the separation of church and state by way of a decree without delay . On November 29th, he abolished religious education as a regular school subject by decree . On December 13th, the Prussian revolutionary government passed a law making it easier for people to leave the church .

As a reaction to the repressive measures, laypeople and theologians founded the Evangelical People's Association on December 12, 1918 to "safeguard and awaken the evangelical interests, insofar as they serve the general interests of the evangelicals and these must also come to the fore in public", and numerous evangelical clergymen, including Karl Veidt and Johannes Kübel , turned to the German National People's Party , which rejected the Weimar Republic .

After the Weimar Constitution of 1919 regulated a moderate form of separation of state and church, the constitution of the Frankfurt regional church had to be put on a new basis. According to the new Prussian constitution of November 30, 1920, the rights to which the king was previously entitled were temporarily exercised by three state ministers of Evangelical denomination until the church had transferred these rights to a newly created canonical body.

The development of a new church constitution was an object of appointed on May 31, 1921 synod of each 18 religious and secular deputies of the State Church, 18 deputies of the parishes and 6 to be appointed by the Consistory delegates. The constitution of the Evangelical Church in Frankfurt am Main , passed by the church assembly on December 13, 1923 and enacted by law by the Prussian state parliament on April 8, 1924 , came into force on May 30, 1924. According to the new constitution, church power came from the church people, who built up from the parishes. Women now also belonged to the church people.

There was no denominational union within the regional church, instead there were still parishes of Lutheran and Reformed denominations. The joint financial affairs were taken over by the Evangelical-Lutheran City Synodal Association and the Evangelical-Reformed City Synodal Association .

Due to the numerous incorporations since 1895, the area of ​​the regional church only covered part of the city area. On December 14, 1928, with the transfer of the parish of Bockenheim and the parish of Fechenheim from the Evangelical Church in Hessen-Kassel to the Evangelical Church in Frankfurt, uniate parishes also came to the regional church. According to the assignment contract, the Frankfurter Landeskirche had to pay the Electoral Hesse Church a gap of 300,000 Reichsmarks .

Thus there were now 30 parishes in the area of ​​the regional church, namely

  • 19 Lutheran local parishes
  • 8 united local parishes
  • 2 reformed personal church congregations and
  • a Lutheran institutional congregation (deaconesses).

Anyone who did not belong to any of the personal parishes automatically became a member of the local parish responsible for their residential area and thus possibly changed their confession when moving within the city.

In 1929 the Lutheran and United congregations formed a joint city synodal association . In 1931 another personal parish was established for the members of the Evangelical Association North-East for evangelism and community care .

With the Frankfurt construction of an administrative union with extensive rights of the individual confessional communities, there could be no common spiritual director of the regional church. The representation of the regional church to the outside was taken by the president of the regional church assembly, d. H. the Frankfurt Synod, true. D. Richard Schulin held this position from 1925 to 1932. His deputy, Regional Church Councilor Dr. Johannes Kübel .

1933 to 1945 - conformity and church struggle

On September 12, 1933, the synod of the regional church in Frankfurt approved the merger with the Evangelical Church in Nassau and the Evangelical Church in Hesse to form the Evangelical Church in Nassau-Hesse . The united church gave itself a church constitution shaped by the leader principle . On February 6, 1934, Reich Bishop Müller appointed Lic. Ernst Ludwig Dietrich appointed a representative of the German Christians as the first regional bishop. With the church law of February 10, 1934, the regional church introduced the so-called Aryan paragraph , with which people of Jewish descent were excluded from all offices. At the same time five provost districts were formed, including the provost office of Frankfurt with the former area of ​​the regional church. The first provost of Frankfurt was Alfred Trommershausen , also a representative of the German Christians.

Against the regional bishop and the German Christians, an internal church opposition was formed by members of the Confessing Church , who formed a regional brotherhood . Leading members of the Confessing Church in the following church struggle were u. a. Karl Veidt , pastor at the Paulskirche in Frankfurt , and Wilhelm Fresenius , pastor at the Katharinenkirche .

1945 to 2000 - Propstei Frankfurt

After the collapse of the "Third Reich" there was uncertainty as to whether the merger of the three churches would continue. Although the will to do so existed, the three regional churches initially formed three separate provisional church leaderships. The resolution of a joint synod on September 30, 1947 in Friedberg , which ecclesiastically and legally confirmed the union , then provided legal security . The "Evangelical Church in Hesse and Nassau" thus became the legal successor to the old Frankfurt regional church.

Frankfurt formed one of the seven provost districts of the regional church. The provost for Frankfurt belonged to the leading spiritual office , the collective bishop's office of the regional church. The first provost was Karl Goebels from 1950 to 1969 , his successor from 1970 to 1988 Dieter Trautwein . In 1988, Helga Trösken was the first woman to take on an episcopal office in a Protestant regional church in Germany.

Since 2000

In the course of a structural reform of the Evangelical Church in Hesse and Nassau, the Propstei Frankfurt was merged with Nord-Starkenburg to form the new Propstei Rhein-Main . Helga Trösken was the provost for Rhein-Main until 2006, and Gabriele Scherle from 2006 to 2017 . With her retirement, the previous six priests of the EKHN were reduced to five and restructured as of October 1, 2017. In this context, the seat of the Propstei Rhein-Main was relocated to Wiesbaden. Provost for Rhine-Main is Oliver Albrecht , previously provost of the dissolved provost of South Nassau since 2014.

From the former seven Frankfurt Dean's Offices, four were formed in 2000, which merged in 2014 to form the Evangelical City Deanery Frankfurt am Main .

Church leaders

Walter Friedemann Ernst was president of the “Royal Consistory” from 1899 to 1918. From 1925 to 1932 Richard Schulin served as president of the regional church assembly.

literature

  • Christoph Führ, Jürgen Telschow (ed.): The Protestant Church of Frankfurt am Main in the past and present ; Evangelical Regional Association Frankfurt am Main 1978; ISSN  0344-3957
  • Evangelical Regional Association Frankfurt (ed.): Everything for Germany, Germany for Christ. Evangelical Church in Frankfurt am Main from 1929 to 1945 ; Catalog for the exhibition from April 29 to July 12, 1985 in the Dominican monastery ; Frankfurt am Main 1985; ISBN 3-922179-08-8
  • Heinrich Steitz: History of the Evangelical Church in Hesse and Nassau , 5 volumes; Marburg 1961–1977.
  • Jürgen Telschow: The old Frankfurt Church. Law and organization of the former Evangelical Church in Frankfurt ; Evangelical Regional Association Frankfurt am Main, 1979; ISBN 3-922179-00-2 .
  • Jürgen Telschow: Struggle for the right path. The Evangelical Church in Frankfurt between 1933 and 1945 . Hessian Church History Association, Darmstadt 1913, ISBN 978-3-931849-42-9 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ § 78, item 2 of the Synodal Order
  2. ↑ The church district Bockenheim included the united parishes in Berkersheim, Bockenheim ( Jakobskirche ), Eschersheim ( Emmauskirche ), Eckenheim, Ginnheim ( Bethlehem Church ) , Praunheim, Preungesheim and Seckbach ( Marienkirche ).
  3. ↑ a b Jürgen Telschow, "Frankfurt's Protestant Church in the 20th Century: Structures, Finances and Buildings of the Protestant Church in Frankfurt" , in: Everything has its time: 100 years of Protestant parishes in the old Frankfurt urban area, 100 years of Protestant community association / Evangelical regional association Frankfurt am Main , Jürgen Telschow (Ed.), Frankfurt am Main:, 1999, (= series of publications of the Evangelical Regional Association Frankfurt am Main; Vol. 23), p. 116 ff., Here p. 12 (numbering in the PDF file differs from the one in the book; accessed on May 14, 2013). ISBN 3-922179-31-2 .
  4. ^ Pastors and their illusions about the Nazi state in FAZ of February 27, 2013, page 36