Protestant military parish

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The Evangelical military chaplaincies ( EMilPfA ) are local authorities of the Federal in the division of the Ministry of Defense . The roughly 100 small offices at Bundeswehr locations throughout Germany and at four locations abroad basically consist of a military pastor, who heads the authority and is a temporary official , and a parish assistant.

Status and tasks

The Protestant military parish councils belong to the organizational area of ​​military chaplaincy of the Bundeswehr and (with the exception of the foreign locations) are subordinate to the Protestant military deans , who oversee them. These in turn are subordinate to the Evangelical Church Office for the Bundeswehr as the higher federal authority. Its head, the military general dean, is the disciplinary superior of all military chaplains.

The Protestant military parish officers are usually responsible for various offices and properties and look after the soldiers there in their service in the Bundeswehr, in everyday military life as well as on missions abroad . Through pastoral care they provide orientation and support for all members of the armed forces .

In individual cases, the Protestant military parish officers have additional staff, such as a deacon , another parish assistant or an office worker, but always only one military pastor. This is why there are several Protestant military parish offices at the largest Bundeswehr locations with many Protestant soldiers: three each in Koblenz and Wilhelmshaven and two each in Augustdorf , Berlin , Bonn , Hamburg , Kiel , Cologne , Munster and Ulm . Some Protestant military chaplains are manned by senior military chaplains who hold the official title of military dean and are not temporary officials.

The ecclesiastical tasks of the evangelical military parish councils include the implementation of church services and pastoral talks. The military chaplains are independent of state instructions in fulfilling their church tasks (“spiritual mandate”). There, the ecclesiastical pastoral care secret and the ecclesiastical confessional secret can apply. The state tasks include giving life- science lessons , which are not considered to be religious practice, are compulsory for all soldiers and are carried out according to specifications and on behalf of the state.

Foreign locations

The four German Evangelical Military Parishioners at the Bundeswehr locations abroad are:

They are not managed by an Evangelical Military Deanery, but directly by the Evangelical Church Office for the Bundeswehr.

history

The number of Protestant military parish offices is regularly adapted to the structure of the Bundeswehr (location closings, reductions, increases). On December 31, 2017, the Protestant military parish in Penzing was dissolved and on January 1, 2018, the Protestant military parishes in Altenstadt , Cham and Rostock-Warnemünde were set up.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Konrad Adenauer barracks. In: Bundeswehr location database . www.zmsbw.de, accessed on April 1, 2020 .