Evangelical Breviary (Hertzsch)
Evangelical Breviary is the title of a prayer book compiled by the Jena practical theologian and religious socialist Erich Hertzsch and widely distributed among Christians in the GDR.
history
The prayer times developed in the final phase of the Second World War and the post-war period from the evening prayers in the Eisenach rectory. The selected songs and texts should be acquired meditatively and then prayed by heart. Hertzsch took over the concept of "scriptural meditation" from Dietrich Bonhoeffer . The texts of the breviary were also intended as a kind of iron ration , since every Christian could get into situations "where there is no Bible, no hymn book, no prayer book available."
A special feature of this breviary are the etchings by Rembrandt selected for each weekday. Hertzsch did not see them as illustrations, but as the basis for meditation and thus placed himself in the tradition of medieval breviaries.
In 1959 the Evangelical Breviary was published by the press office of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Thuringia , a second and third edition followed in 1976 and 1981. The fourth edition from 1987 appeared simultaneously in Hamburg and East Berlin. A fifth updated edition was published in 2001 under the title “Biblical Breviary”, edited by Klaus-Peter Hertzsch .
construction
There are four times of prayer: Mette , Laudes , Vespers and Compline , with the latter always remaining the same as night prayer. The prayer times Mette, Laudes and Vespers stand under the themes of Creation - Redemption - Sanctification, therefore, as an alternative to the responsory , they contain interpretations of the three parts of the Creed from Luther's Small Catechism. Every weekday is placed under a biblical motto (I am word from the Gospel of John), and as a daily request a sentence from the Our Father is prayed, connected with the corresponding stanza from Luther's chant Our Father in the Kingdom of Heaven . In Vespers there is a weekly changing Bible reading and a weekly song.
| weekday | theme | Our Father's request |
|---|---|---|
| Sunday | The resurrection | Blessed be your name |
| Monday | The kingdom of God | Your kingdom come |
| Tuesday | The Incarnation | Your will will happen |
| Wednesday | The bread of life | Our daily bread Give us today |
| Thursday | The right vine | Forgive us our debts |
| Friday | The passion | Do not lead us into temptation |
| Saturday | Going home to the father | Deliver us from evil |
Text output
- Evangelical breviary . Evangelical Publishing House Berlin. 4th edition, Berlin 1987
- Biblical breviary , compiled by Erich Hertzsch, with a foreword by Klaus-Peter Hertzsch. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 2001. ISBN 3-374-01804-1 .
literature
- Karl-Heinrich Bieritz : Liturgy. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2004. pp. 633–635.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Erich Hertzsch: Evangelical Breviary . 4th edition. Berlin 1987, p. 218 .
- ↑ Corinna Dahlgrün: Christian Spirituality: Forms and Traditions of the Search for God . Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2009, p. 475 .
- ↑ Erich Hertzsch: Evangelical Breviary . 4th edition. Berlin 1987, p. 216 .
- ↑ Erich Hertzsch: Evangelical Breviary . 4th edition. Berlin 1987, p. 219 (By church, Hertzsch meant Protestant regional church in this context, as opposed to a brotherhood or similar): "It is the only breviary that has been published by a church."