Gottfried Forck

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Gottfried Forck (born October 6, 1923 in Ilmenau (Thuringia), † December 24, 1996 in Rheinsberg ) was a German theologian and Protestant bishop .

Life

Forck attended the learned school of the Johanneum in Hamburg and the boarding school of the Moravian Brethren in Niesky . After military service (1942–1945) and captivity (1945–1947), he studied Protestant theology in Bethel , Heidelberg , Basel and West Berlin ; he was an assistant at the church college in Berlin-Zehlendorf and vicar . After church training at the seminary in Brandenburg an der Havel , he was ordained and received his doctorate in 1956. theol. at the University of Heidelberg .

tomb

After his work as a student pastor in East Berlin (1954-1959), a priest in Lautawerk in the Lower Lausitz , as director of the Theological Seminary in Brandenburg (1963) and since 1973 as general superintendent of the diocese Cottbus he joined on 1 October 1981, the Office as Bishop of the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg - East area . In 1991 he retired. The state of Berlin honored him on June 25, 1993 with the award of the title of City Elder . He found his final resting place in a grave of honor of the city of Berlin on the resurrection cemetery in Berlin-Weißensee in Bes. Election 11/12.

Act

The term of office Gottfried Forcks in the 1980s, received by the turn in the GDR tapering development, a special character, as his Church in particularly in the area of conflict between that of Dietrich Bonhoeffer postulated claim, "church for others" to have been, the Concern for and for its own believers and state pressure became inconspicuous and opportune for the church towards the SED state . During the peace decade in 1981, he distributed the patch swords to plowshares in East Berlin's Marienkirche, which were misinterpreted into oppositional symbolism due to the unintended link with the Berlin appeal initiated by Robert Havemann and Rainer Eppelmann . Forck wore a sticker on his briefcase as an act of solidarity with the highly hostile young people who wore this patch and was very committed to these young people.

In the years that followed, church rooms in Berlin in particular increasingly became asylum areas for opposition groups, including those from non-church areas. Through these groups the church was hard questioned and challenged because of its behavior towards the SED state. The church did not always meet these requests and demands, but at least it tried to protect those who were afflicted. For example, on the initiative of Gottfried Forck, after the arrests during the Liebknecht-Luxemburg demonstration in January 1988, a telephone was switched to help with the arrest. Forck personally tried to help those detained at the demonstration. Due to his integrity and openness, Forck did not fall into the orbit of the suspicions surrounding the activities of his consistorial president Manfred Stolpe .

With his presence he protected the founding meeting of the Democratic Awakening on October 1, 1989 . In Berlin's Gethsemane Church , he called on the GDR leadership to adopt the rule of law and democracy. Contrary to the demands of the SED apparatus, he supported the publication of testimony by the East Berlin City Youth Parish about the attacks by the People's Police against peaceful demonstrators during the celebrations around the 40th anniversary of the GDR.

During the evacuation of Mainzer Strasse , the largest police operation in Berlin since the Second World War, Forck offered himself to the police chief as an intermediary and later tried to get the captured occupiers free.

After his retirement and his move to Rheinsberg , he put himself in the service of efforts to prevent an air-to-ground firing range of the Bundeswehr on the Wittstock military training area in the Wittstock-Ruppiner Heide .

"He is the deacon among us bishops in the GDR."

- Bishop Johannes Hempel , Dresden

Works

  • The kingship of Christ and the actions of Christians in the secular orders according to Luther . Goettingen 1957
  • The royal rule of Jesus Christ with Luther . Berlin 1959, ISBN 3-374-00011-8
  • How should we go on? Baptism doctrine and practice / 12 church letters ed. by Gottfried Forck , Berlin 1970
  • Fraternal Church, human world. For Albrecht Schönherr on September 11, 1971 ; ed. by Gottfried Forck and Jürgen Henkys. Berlin 1972
  • In the spotlight: baptism. Theological information for non-theologians . Berlin 1985
  • The Evangelical Church in a united Germany. First experiences from the point of view of the churches in the new federal states; Lecture on the occasion of the general assembly of DGM Ev. Loan Cooperative eG Münster on April 24, 1991 . Munster 1991
  • Portraits in question and answer / Günter Gaus in conversation with Gottfried Forck . Berlin 1991
  • Faith is encouragement to act. An interview with former Bishop Gottfried Forck ; ed. by Manfred Kliem. Rothenburg 1996

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ It happened in Berlin Deutschlandradio on October 7, 2009
predecessor Office successor
Günter Jacob General superintendent of the
Cottbus district
1973 - 1981 		Reinhardt Richter
Albrecht Schönherr Bishop of the Ev. Church in Berlin-Brandenburg
( East area )
1981 - 1991 		Martin Kruse
( reunified regional church )
personal data
SURNAME Forck, Gottfried
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German theologian and Protestant bishop
DATE OF BIRTH October 6, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Ilmenau (Thuringia)
DATE OF DEATH December 24, 1996
Place of death Rheinsberg