Evangelical Consistory (Berlin)

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The Evangelical Consistory in Berlin is the supreme administrative authority of the Evangelical Church Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia (EKBO). It is located in the Evangelical Center at Georgenkirchstrasse 69 in Friedrichshain . Until 2000 it was housed in an administration building in the northern part of Berlin 's Hansaviertel , Bachstrasse 1, at the corner of Altonaer Strasse .

history

The Collegienhaus in Lindenstrasse, 1757.

As the successor organization to the Catholic episcopal courts, the consistory acted as a court for matrimonial matters and, in the course of the sovereign church regiment, also took on the administration of schools and church buildings as well as the appointment and care of the clergy. As the first Lutheran church authority in Berlin, the Kurmärkische Konsistorium began its service in 1543. In the years 1735-1826 the Märkisches consistory formed one of the collegiate bodies in the college building in the Lindenstraße 15 (now renumbered 14), which owes its name this, the better known was the Court of Appeal . From 1750 to 1808 the consistory was subordinate to the Lutheran Upper Consistory of Prussia .

Seal of the Consistory of the Province of Brandenburg

After its dissolution in 1808 and the takeover of church matters by the new culture department in the Prussian Ministry of the Interior, in 1817 responsibility was transferred to the newly established Ministry of Spiritual, Educational and Medical Affairs (Ministry of Culture) . Responsible for the ecclesiastical province of Brandenburg, which has been the uniate Evangelical Church in the Royal Prussian Lands since 1817 , the authority was now called the Royal Consistory of Brandenburg in Berlin . As in the other Prussian provinces, the respective head president was the consistorial president , because the consistories were responsible for church and school matters. After school affairs were transferred to the newly formed provincial school colleges from 1845, separate consistorial presidents were appointed.

From 1850 until the Berlin-Brandenburg church province became a regional church in 1948, the consistory, like those in the other old Prussian church provinces, was subordinate to the Evangelical Upper Church Council (EOK), the new central executive body of the old Prussian regional church. The consistory sat from 1826 to 1881 at Kleine Jägerstrasse 1 in Friedrichswerder . When the city of Berlin was spun off from the political province of Brandenburg with a special status on April 1, 1881, the church province remained undivided. In 1881 the consistory moved to Schützenstrasse 26 in Friedrichsstadt .

When the Court of Appeal moved to its new domicile, which is used again today, in 1913, the consistory returned to the Collegienhaus, this time as the sole user. After the sovereign church regiment was discontinued, the consistory became a purely ecclesiastical institution and was henceforth called the Evangelical Consistory of Brandenburg ; the name was changed after 1933 to Evangelical Consistory of the Mark Brandenburg . After severe bomb damage in the spring of 1944, some offices of the consistory were relocated to the Dreifaltigkeitskirch parish halls at Taubenstrasse 3, to Forst in der Lausitz / Baršć and to Potsdam. On February 3, 1945 the college building burned down completely.

From April 1945 Otto Dibelius took over the leadership of the ecclesiastical province of Brandenburg as bishop. Dibelius, himself not a member, claimed leadership in the consistory, which was greatly reduced in terms of personnel due to deaths, impeachments, vacancies and resignations - the latter three resulted from the quarrels and paralysis of the church bodies in the church struggle . In its October 1945 edition which reported Ecclesiastical Official Journal of the ecclesiastical province of Berlin-Brandenburg that since May 1945 Konsistorialpräsident John Henry was desired stepped into the waiting, Konsistorialrat Paul Fahland retires and Konsistorialrat Hans Nordmann as pastor to the church for Heilsbronnen had been transferred . The religious consistorial members Walter Herrmann, Fritz Loerzer , Siegfried Nobiling and Karl Themel , all supporters of the German Christians, were dismissed. Dibelius filled the vacant posts with representatives of the Old Prussian Confessing Church . In its March 1946 edition, the Church Official Gazette reported Erich Andler (Buckow), Hans Böhm , Provost to St. Petri , Günter Jacob and Kurt Scharf as new members of the Evangelical Consistory of the Mark Brandenburg . In the spring of 1947, the consistory moved rent-free into the almost undamaged building of the old Prussian EOK at Jebensstrasse 3 Charlottenburg. After the city was divided in 1948, it was in West Berlin . In the area of ​​the church province, which became an independent church in 1948 under the name Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg , the consistory was the only one until 1967 and so the name suffix was dropped.

At the time the Berlin Wall was erected , 12 of the 19 consistorial members lived as cross-border commuters in East Berlin or the GDR . The consistory, now chaired by senior consistorial advisor Werner Hagemeyer, met in the east and authorized the seven consistorial members living in West Berlin, including consistorial president Hansjürg Ranke , to conduct the business of the consistory for West Berlin at the headquarters in Jebensstrasse perceive. The consistory of the East region was located on Neue Grünstrasse.

Former Konsistorium (West), Bachstrasse, Hansaviertel .

After the administrative division of the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg into two separate regions (West and East) from 1967 and the agreement of a rent from 1969 for the rooms in Jebensstraße, the building in Bachstraße 9-10 was built for the West region of the regional church who took up the consistory of the West Region in February 1972. Only the spiritual leadership of both regions remained bundled with the common bishop elected for life in 1966 in the person of the East Berliner Kurt Scharf, who, however, had been refused entry by the GDR since a business trip to the West approved after the Wall was built at the end of September 1961.

In 2000 the consistory, reunified in 1991, moved into the building of the Evangelical Center at Georgenkirchstrasse 69, Friedrichshain, where it is still located today.

Today's function and areas of responsibility

In addition to the church leadership of the EKBO, which consists of persons elected by the regional synod, including officials of the regional church (bishop, president of the regional synod, superintendent general of the district, consistorial president and provost), there is the consistory as the highest administrative authority of the regional church, in which permanent employees Church officials work. Its members prepare resolutions for the church leadership, manage the day-to-day business of the regional church, are responsible for the legal supervision of parishes and church districts and the supervision of the pastors, superintendents and church officials.

The consistory supports all ecclesiastical areas in fulfilling their tasks. The consistory is collegial. The college consists of the president, the provost and the heads of the departments (legal and spiritual senior consistorial councilors). The consistory is divided into departments and units. The head of the consistory is the consistorial president, usually a lawyer. The theological direction (department 2) is incumbent on the provost.

  • Department 1: The President: Head of the consistory, affairs of the regional synod and the church leadership, state church law, etc. a.
  • Department 2: Theology and Church Life
  • Department 3: Personnel, Special Pastoral Care
  • Department 4: Theological training and further education and theological examination office
  • Department 5: Education, Schools and Religious Education
  • Department 6: Finances, Assets, Taxes, etc. a.
  • Department 7: Service and labor law, state law, archiving etc. a.

Development and conception of the building in Bachstrasse

The building on Bachstrasse was designed by the architects Georg Heinrichs and Hans Christian Müller and erected between 1968 and 1971. The high-rise had an aluminum facade and a polygonal floor plan.

Situation November 7, 2011

The building has stood empty since the evangelical church moved out. The demolition of the building, which began in November 2011, was controversial.

Presidents and provosts

Consistorial President
Consistory Region West 1967–1991
  • 1960–1971: Hansjürg Ranke (until 1967 for the undivided consistory)
  • 1971–1983 ?: Georg Flor
  • 1983? –1994: Horstdieter Wildner (from 1991 for the reunited consistory)
Consistory Region East 1967–1991
from 1991
Provosts in the consistory
  • 1945–1959: Hans Böhm (1899–1962), spiritual director of the Berlin department
  • 1946–1961: Kurt Scharf , spiritual director of the Brandenburg department
  • 1960–1969: Martin Schutzka (1908–1978), Berlin Department, 1959–60 provisional, from 1961 only for the western sectors
West Region 1967-1991
  • 1960–1969: Martin Schutzka, until 1961 for all of Berlin
  • 1970–1980: Wilhelm Dittmann (1915–1988)
  • 1980–1990: Uwe Hollm
  • 1990–1991: Karl-Heinrich Lütcke, acting
East region 1967–1991
from 1991

bibliography

  • Hansjürg Ranke, Karl Kupisch and Werner Hagemeyer: 150 Years of the Evangelical Consistory , Berlin: Lettner-Verlag, 1967, (= Berliner Reden; Vol. 9)

Web links

Commons : Konsistorium der Mark Brandenburg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. Instruction, in front of the Lutheran Ober = Consistorium, established over all royal lands, de dato Berlin, October 4th. 1750 , printed in: Corpus Constitutionum Marchicarum, Oder Königl. Preussis. and Churfürstl. Brandenburgische in der Chur- and Marck Brandenburg, also incorporated Landen, published and issued regulations, Edicta, Mandata, Rescripta etc .: From the times of Frederick I Elector of Brandenburg, etc. bit under the government of Friderich Wilhelm, King in Prussia, etc. ad annum 1736. inclusive , IV. Continuatio, column 291ff.
  2. ^ Conrad Dammeier: The official building of the Royal Consistory of the Province of Brandenburg in Berlin, Schützenstrasse 26 . In: Zeitschrift für Bauwesen , Volume 54 (1904), Col. 37–42, Plate 10–11. Digitized in the holdings of the Central and State Library Berlin .
  3. ↑ the evangelischen.htm Luisenstädter Bildungsverein
  4. ↑ a b SBZ manual: state administrations, parties, social organizations and their executives in the Soviet occupation zone of Germany 1945-1949. Edited by Martin Broszat , with contributions by Hermann Weber and Gerhard Braas. Oldenbourg, Munich 1990, p. 821. ISBN 3-486-55261-9 .
  5. ↑ a b c Christian Halbrock : Evangelical Pastors of the Berlin-Brandenburg Church 1945–1961: Official Autonomy in the Guardian State? Lukas-Verlag, Berlin 2004, zugl .: Berlin, Humboldt-Univ., Diss., 2003, p. 151. ISBN 3-936872-18-X .
  6. ^ Wilhelm Hüffmeier , Christa Stache: Jebensstraße 3: a memory book , Berlin: Union of Evangelical Churches in the EKD, 2006, p. 34. ISBN 3-00-019520-3 .
  7. ↑ a b c Claudia Lepp : Taboo of unity? The East-West Community of Protestant Christians and the Division of Germany (1945–1969) , Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2005, (= work on contemporary church history / AKIZ, series B; vol. 42), plus Karlsruhe, Univ. , Habil.-Schr., 2004, p. 397. ISBN 3-525-55743-4 .
  8. ^ Wilhelm Hüffmeier, Christa Stache: Jebensstraße 3: a memory book , Berlin: Union of Evangelical Churches in the EKD, 2006, p. 44. ISBN 3-00-019520-3 .
  9. ↑ As of 1961, one of the general superintendents in East Berlin, Cottbus, Eberswalde or Neuruppin took over the duties of the bishop on a rotating basis. From 1967 onwards, Albrecht Schönherr , General Superintendent in Eberswalde, was the administrator of the Bishopric in the East Region and, in 1972 with like-minded people in a controversial process, succeeded in replacing Scharf as Bishop in the East Region. See “1000 years of the church for the people of the region” ( memento of the original from October 26, 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. , on: Evangelical Church Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia , accessed on November 6, 2013. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ekbo.de
  10. ↑ Obituary: "Hans Christian Müller is dead"
  11. ↑ From 1845 the school supervision was transferred to the newly formed provincial school colleges, so that the high president sat in them. The consistories became purely ecclesiastical bodies and were staffed accordingly.
  12. ↑ Personal dictionary on German Protestantism: 1919–1949 , zsgest. and edit by Hannelore Braun and Gertraud Grünzinger, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006, (= work on contemporary church history / AKIZ; vol. 12), p. 21. ISBN 3-525-55761-2
  13. ↑ Anke Silomon: Claim and Reality of the "Special Community". The East-West Dialogue of the German Protestant Churches 1969-1991 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006, ISBN 9783525557471 , p. 218.
  14. ↑ Karl-Heinrich Lütcke, “Always good for surprises. On the death of Uwe Hollm ”, in: dieKirche. Evangelical weekly newspaper No. 1, January 1, 2012, p. 6.


Coordinates: 52 ° 31 ′ 7.3 ″  N , 13 ° 20 ′ 19.3 ″  E