General Diocese of Bremen-Verden
The General Diocese of Bremen-Verden was an ecclesiastical management and supervisory district in the area of today's Evangelical Lutheran Regional Church of Hanover .
This was established in 1651 for the two duchies of Bremen and Verden , which were ruled by Sweden in personal union after the Peace of Westphalia , and received its own catechism . The official seat of the superintendent general was Stade . They were at the same time presidents and from 1688 first councilors of the consistory in Stade, which was also established in 1651 .
In 1885 the General Diocese was expanded to include the land of Hadeln . In 1903 it became part of the newly formed General Diocese of Stade, which consisted of the Duchies of Bremen, Verden, the Land Hadeln and the Principality of Lüneburg Harburg and Dannenberg, as well as six inspections of the former General Diocese of Osnabrück-Hoya-Diepholz . The seat was moved to Hanover , the incumbents were members of the local consistory and, since 1924, of the regional church office.
In 1934 the district was divided into the provosts of Celle and Harburg. During the reorganization of the regional church administration in 1936, the Sprengel Stade was created as a successor institution .
General superintendent
The historian of the Bremen-Verdean consistory, Friedrich Köster , judged on the 200th anniversary of its existence in 1852 that the series of general superintendents contained “honorable and capable men, but not really great minds and epoch-making scholars.” On the other hand, Rudolf Steinmetz reported in 1907, the general superintendents traditionally held a "brotherly position" towards the pastors and were "consistently ... confidants of the pastors and congregations", so that some would see "the history of the consistory in Stade actually [as] the history of the general superintendents in Stade".
- 1651–1672: Michael Havemann
- 1673–1677: Daniel Lüdemann
- 1683–1720: Johann Diecmann (1712–1715 during the Danish occupation in Bremen)
- 1714–1715: Caspar Bussing (installed by the Danes)
- 1721–1748: Lucas Bacmeister
- 1749–1791: Johann Hinrich Pratje
- 1791–1814: Johann Caspar Velthusen
- 1814–1839: Georg Alexander Ruperti
- 1840–1860: Johann Friedrich Burchard Köster
- 1860–1875: Justus Alexander Saxer
- 1875–1885: Hermann Küster
- 1885–1903: Hermann Christian Ludwig Steinmetz
- 1904–1913: Johannes Remmers
- 1913–1922: Johannes Schwerdtmann
- 1922–1925: August Marahrens
- 1925–1933: Rudolf Steinmetz
literature
- Johann Hinrich Pratje : News from the Royal Consistorio in the Duchies of Bremen and Verden. 3 parts. In: ders. (Ed.): Old and new from the Duchies of Bremen and Verden 5 (1772), pp. 29–84; 6 (1773), pp. 249-290; 9 (1776), pp. 223-262.
- Friedrich Köster : History of the royal consistory of the duchies of Bremen and Verden. Pockwitz, Stade 1852.
- Rudolf Steinmetz: The general superintendents in the duchies of Bremen-Verden. In: Journal of the Society for Lower Saxony Church History 10 (1905), pp. 144–196 (1st half) and 11 (1906), pp. 1–88 (2nd half). Reprinted as a monograph under the same title . Bacheratz, Stade 1907.
- Philipp Meyer : The pastors of the regional churches of Hanover and Schaumburg-Lippes since the Reformation , Volume 2, Göttingen 1942, p. 388.
- Beate-Christine Fiedler: Church and sovereignty in the time of Sweden. In: Yearbook of the Society for Lower Saxony Church History 85/86 (1987), pp. 57–68.
- Hans Otte : Sensible and Christian. The draft of a Brem-, Verdische church ordinance from 1769. Studies on the church history of Lower Saxony, vol. 31. Publications from the city archive of Stade, vol. 9. Vandenhoeck u. Ruprecht, Göttingen 1989.
- Christian Hoffmann: The Consistory in Stade in the Electorate of Hanover. Organization and staff of the ecclesiastical central authority for the duchies of Bremen and Verden 1715–1810. In: Yearbook of the Society for Lower Saxony Church History 104 (2006), pp. 73-104.