Friedrich Wilhelm Black

This article describes the clergyman Friedrich Wilhelm Schwarz. For two organ builders see Wilhelm Schwarz & Sohn .

Friedrich Wilhelm Black.

Friedrich Wilhelm Schwarz , also: Schwartz (born April 11, 1815 in Sardschau near Danzig ; † December 6, 1895 in Amsterdam ) was the founder of the "Apostolic Zending" and in fact co-founder of the New Apostolic Church .

Life

FW Schwarz came from a farming family, but learned the tailoring trade. He felt the calling to be a missionary and therefore went to Berlin, where he came into contact with the Catholic-Apostolic congregations . Apostle Carlyle ordained him a priest in 1850. Apostle Francis Valentine Woodhouse later consecrated him as an angel (= bishop). He was head of the Hamburg congregation in the office of elders and thus subordinated to the Berlin angel Rothe (who held a position comparable to that of archbishop of the Catholic-Apostolic congregations in northern Germany). The Hamburg congregation grew from 20 to 150 members under the leadership of Schwarz.

Very early on, Schwarz was of the opinion that the "apostleship of the end times" must continue beyond the death of the English apostles. Therefore he took up close contact with Heinrich Geyer , the prophet for Northern Germany. The latter reported to him that he had called other apostles, but that they had not been accepted by the apostles. Tensions arose within the Catholic apostolic congregations, whereupon Geyer was suspended in December 1862 . Schwarz tried to mediate, then took the initiative and invited Geyer and the called Apostle Rosochacky to Hamburg. On January 4, 1863, he publicly accepted Rosochacky as an apostle before the Hamburg congregation and resigned from his office under the angel Rothe. Most of the community sided with him. There was a church expulsion process against Geyer and Schwarz. On January 27, 1863, they were removed from office and expelled. All attempts at arbitration failed.

The Hamburg congregation went its own way and later called itself the General Christian Apostolic Mission . Contrary to all Catholic apostolic traditions, in the absence of the Prophet Geyer in the spring of 1863, the priest Carl Wilhelm Louis Preuss was called to the apostle by a deacon. On May 25, 1863, FW Schwarz was appointed as an apostle by Geyer.

In September 1863 he was assigned the Netherlands as a working area by prophecy. He moved there very quickly and began under difficult conditions. He received support from three mission evangelists, including Franz Huebner , who had already come to the Netherlands in the spring of 1863. His work there led to the " Apostolic Zending ". There were only very loose contacts with Geyer and the Hamburg community.

By winning over the reformed Westphalian priest Wilhelm Menkhoff, the apostolic zending was carried to West Germany. Menkhoff also convinced Schwarz to replace the rich Catholic-Apostolic liturgy and order with far simpler forms of worship. Another break with the past was the introduction of child sealing and the administration of the sacraments for the dead.

Schwarz was able to work relatively autonomously in the Netherlands, while several apostolic groups (Geyer, Menkhoff and the Catholic-Apostolic congregations) were active in Germany. In 1879 there was a momentous meeting in Braunschweig under the leadership of Apostle Schwarz. The Apostles Hohl and Bösecke, called by Geyer for Hesse and Silesia, were also present. The question was whether Johann Friedrich Güldner's call to the apostle should be recognized as valid by the prophet Geyer. The appeal was rejected by Schwarz, which the Geyer parliamentary group did not accept.

Thus, on August 4, 1878, the apostolic movement was separated into a part under the leadership of the prophet Geyer and the apostle Güldner and one under the apostles Schwarz and Menkhoff. This can be seen as the birth of the New Apostolic Church .

Schwarz functioned among the apostles as the "pillar apostle" without this designation ever being used formally. It was only after his death in 1895 that Friedrich Krebs gave up the principle of collegiality , who thus created the New Apostolic Chief Apostle ministry.

literature

• Schröter, Johannes Albrecht: The Catholic Apostolic Congregations in Germany and the "Geyer Case". Tectum Verlag, 3rd edition 2004, ISBN 3-89608-814-9
• Obst, Helmut: Apostles and Prophets of Modern Times , Göttingen 2000, ISBN 3-525-55438-9
• Diersmann, Edwin: You should recognize them by their fruits - The legacy of FW Schwarz , ReDi-Roma Verlag, 10.2007, ISBN 978-3-940450-20-3