Friedrich Heyer

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Friedrich Heyer in September 1994 in front of the portal of the German Lutheran Church in Kiev

Friedrich Heyer (born January 24, 1908 in Darmstadt ; † April 10, 2005 in Schleswig ) was a German Protestant theologian , pastor , church historian and university professor .

Life

Heyer, a son of the doctor Hermann Heyer (1873–1914) and his wife Hedwig (née Klaas, 1883–1909), studied Protestant theology in Tübingen (where he joined the Igel Academic Association in Tübingen in 1926 ), Giessen and Göttingen and in 1931 became castle preacher and tutor of Heinrich XXXIX's sons. von Reuß-Köstritz (1891–1946) at Ernstbrunn Palace in Lower Austria . With the later classical philologist Otto Luschnat he undertook a long hike through south-eastern Europe in 1932 and after his return he became city vicar in Braunschweig. In 1934 he became pastor at St. Michaelis in Schleswig , where he adhered to the Confessing Church . At the theological faculty in Göttingen, Heyer was promoted to Dr. theol. PhD. During the Second World War he worked as an officer in the Secret Field Police , mainly in Ukraine . Towards the end of the war he fled to Germany and resumed his pastoral office in Schleswig in the spring of 1945.

In 1947 Heyer was briefly arrested and accused of participating in war crimes; but there was no trial. In 1951 he completed his habilitation with a thesis on The Orthodox Church of Ukraine from 1917 to 1945 in Kiel. In Schleswig he set up an Evangelical Academy (later moved to Bad Segeberg ), which he headed full-time from 1954. Study trips took him to the USA and Jerusalem, among other places. Shortly after his appointment as associate professor in Kiel, he was appointed to a newly established professorship for denominational studies at the University of Heidelberg in 1964, where he taught until the age of 90.

Denomination

At the denominational seminars that Friedrich Heyer held together with Hans-Diether Reimer (1926–1993) from the Evangelical Central Office for Worldview Issues, one to three representatives of these religious communities were invited for each religious community or sect treated. This made it possible to articulate their theological perspectives and the Protestant theological positions in a dialogue with the respective representatives of the other religious communities.

Friendly contacts with the Eastern Churches

Friedrich Heyer made his first contacts with the Orthodox churches in Greece in 1932 on a hike that took him to Mount Athos . He had contacts with the Russian Orthodox Church during the Second World War. As early as the 1950s he was interested in the non-Chalcedonian churches (e.g. the Armenian Church , the Ethiopian Church ). He traveled to the Balkans, Greece, the Middle East and Ethiopia well into old age. In 1971 he became president of the German-Armenian Association.

Several Orthodox churches awarded Heyer awards. The Syrian Orthodox Patriarch Mor Ignatius Zakka I. Iwas honored him with the Mar Ephrem Order. The Orthodox theological faculty of the Lucian Blaga University in Sibiu awarded him an honorary doctorate .

Tabor Society

In 1975 Heyer founded the Tabor Society to support the Orthodox church schools in Ethiopia .

Fonts (selection)

  • The Orthodox Church of Ukraine from 1917 to 1945 . Müller, Cologne-Braunsfeld 1953.
  • The Catholic Church from 1648 to 1870 (= The Church in its History N1). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1963.
    • The Catholic Church from 1648 to 1870. Transl. by DWD Shaw. Blake, London 1969.
  • (with the collaboration of Volker Pitzer) Religion without a church . Stuttgart 1977; 2 1979.
  • Denominational studies (= De Gruyter textbook ). De Gruyter, Berlin 1977, ISBN 3-11-006651-3 .
  • Church history of the Holy Land . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart etc. 1984.
    • Revised version with footnote references: 2000 years of church history of the Holy Land. Martyrs, monks, church fathers, crusaders, patriarchs, excavators and pilgrims (= Studies on Oriental Church History. Vol. 11). Lit, Münster et al. 2000, ISBN 3-8258-4955-4 .
  • Diversity close to God. Religious essays from the decade 1978–1988 . [Photocopied self-print] Heidelberg 1988; 2 1989.
  • The saints on the islands. Vites and hymns from Aegean and Adriatic (= Oikonomia 29 ). Erlangen 1991.
  • The hill road. The age in the memory of a theologian . [Photocopied own print] Heidelberg 2002 (autobiography).
  • Church history of Ukraine in the 20th century. From the turn of the First World War to the beginnings of an independent Ukrainian state . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2003, ISBN 3-525-56191-1 .
  • Jerusalem and the Holy Land in their meaning for Christian existence . Hamburg 2006.

A complete bibliography was created by Christian Weise in 2009 ( digitized version ).

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Heyer, Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Protestant theologian, pastor, church historian and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH January 24, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Darmstadt
DATE OF DEATH April 10, 2005
Place of death Schleswig