Hans-Jürgen Quest

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Hans-Jürgen Quest (born February 7, 1924 in Damnatz as Johannes Jürgen Quest ; † August 1, 1999 in Hamburg ) was a German Lutheran theologian and chief pastor of the Hamburg St. Michaelis Church (Michel) .

Life

Johannes Jürgen Quest was born on February 7th, 1924 as the second child of Pastor Otto Quest and his wife Margarete, geb. Klausing, born in the small village of Damnatz on the Elbe (300 inhabitants). Here he attended the one-class elementary school for four years, then switched to the middle school in the small town of Dannenberg (Elbe) , where he also received private Latin lessons. The father, who was extremely critical of National Socialism, died early (1935). Because of the school, the mother and her four children (Gertrud, Hans Jürgen, Magdalena and Christian) moved to Osnabrück . Here, Hans Jürgen first attended the city council high school . But when the school abolished the old language subjects under the National Socialists, he switched to the traditional Catholic high school Carolinum  - as the first Protestant student ever! In 1942 he graduated from this school.

After graduating from high school, he was drafted into labor service on the island of Sylt and in the autumn of the same year as a recruit in the infantry of the Wehrmacht in Herford / Westf. After this basic training he was deployed in the siege of Leningrad . In 1944 he completed an officer training course in Alsace, was promoted to lieutenant and then again ordered to the Eastern Front.

A lengthy hospital stay - a land mine had injured his ankle - spared him further fighting. He was moved to the replacement unit in Osnabrück. In April 1945 he took part in the fighting in northwest Germany southeast of Bremen, where he was wounded again. In a Hamburg hospital he was taken prisoner by the English, from which he - interned in Wesselburen , Schleswig-Holstein - was released after four months.

Now he was free and could begin his professional training. In November 1945 he enrolled at the Bethel Church University in order to learn the languages ​​necessary for studying theology, among other things. He continued his studies in Tübingen , where he heard lectures from Gerhard Ebeling and Helmut Thielicke . During a semester abroad in 1949/50 in Zurich , he attended courses with Karl Barth in Basel . He passed his first theological exam in 1951 in Göttingen .

His teacher Helmut Thielicke , who was rector of the University of Tübingen at the time, brought him back to Tübingen with the request to become an assistant at his faculty. After a short period as an assistant, he went to the Erichsburg seminary and, after its closure, to Hildesheim (St. Michaelis) . In 1954 he passed his second theological exam there, was ordained and began his work as a pastor in July 1954 in the second parish of the St. Petri parish in Hanover-Döhren . After a short time he founded the resurrection church - initially in a newly built parish hall. The Church of the Resurrection was built according to the plans of the architects Horst Langer and Andreas Friess and consecrated in 1964.

On October 1, 1962, Hans-Jürgen Quest was appointed director of studies at the seminary in Hildesheim for five years, where he trained the candidates for the ministry.

On October 1, 1967, he was given the post of senior pastor at Hamburg's St. Michaelis Church (Michel), which he held until his retirement on July 1, 1987.

Act

Quest, who combined spiritual and theological commitment with a wealth of ideas and urbane greatness, was able to work in a variety of ways:

• as a parish pastor, d. H. Preacher, pastor and churchman,
• as a long-standing speaker of morning devotions on the radio and in the ARD program Das Wort zum Sonntag and as a designer of impressive television services from St. Michaelis in Hamburg,
• as a liturgical innovator, who turned the festivities of the church year into large, religious service events (mostly continued annually to this day, nativity scene devotions, church of lights at Epiphany , with young people during so-called days of common life, developed dramaturgical Pentecost services, St. John's bonfires on the church square, Hubertus mass etc.),
• as the person responsible for the first re-entry point of the North Elbe regional church,
• as an active social worker in the Hamburg harbor area and sponsor of the homeless hostel Herz As ,
• as an initiator of ecumenical cooperation, open to members of the Orthodox, Catholic, Baptist churches and the Waldensian movement,
• as a practical theological journalist and speaker on church and literary topics, including at the Evangelical Church Congress and
• as an organizer of theological group tours, several times with conferences in the Orthodox Academy of Crete, etc. a. together with Walter Hollenweger.

Quest spoke passionately, yet calmly and calmly, in front of large churches and small groups - for him "spiritual cells". He regularly sent large numbers of his sermons, which are collected in the St. Michaelis Archive, to those close to them. Quest wrestles with questions of personal coping with life, Christian witness and social credibility. For him, Christians are “personally liable partners of God”. His theological and pastoral concern is - following Dietrich Bonhoeffer - the "communio sanctorum", ie the community of all who are responsible for shaping the Church of Jesus Christ. His ecclesiastical and journalistic activities were geared towards this future opening and supporting community, including above all his personal, thoroughly charismatic appearance in preaching and personal conversation.

Selection of works

• God lets himself be spoken to: prayers for worship. Kassel: Stauda Verlag 1983 (Church between planning and hope, vol. 28) ISBN 3-7982-0162-5
• That belief will take wings. Hamburg: Agentur des Rauhen Haus 1992 ISBN 3-7600-0585-3
• Who trust in the Lord: a companion through the year with words of the Holy Scriptures. Hamburg: Agency of the Rough House, 1990 ISBN 3-7600-0557-8
• More love. Radio devotions and television sermons 1961-1990 , ed. v. Hans-Hermann Tiemann, Bielefeld: Luther-Verlag 2011 ISBN 978-3-7858-0567-1

literature

• Hans-Hermann Tiemann (Ed.): Memory of Hans-Jürgen Quest (1924–1999). Hamburg chief pastor "urbi et orbi" (= faith and live. Vol. 18). LIT, Münster 2004, ISBN 3-8258-7384-6 .
• Helge Adolphsen (Ed.): Oh, how wonderfully you stand there: Sermons in Hamburg's Michel from five centuries. Murmann, Hamburg 2006, ISBN 978-3-938017-79-1 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Hans-Jürgen Quest in the catalog of the German National Library
• Misha Leuschen: A Life for Michel , in: Hamburger Abendblatt , November 22, 2005
• Evangelical-Lutheran Church of the Resurrection Hannover-Döhren , tour

Remarks

1. ↑ Uwe Schipper (ed.): 400 Years Ratsgymnasium Osnabrück, Bramsche 1995, p. 218.
2. ↑ See speakers since 1954 .
3. ↑ Erdmuthe Quest: New worship celebrations, introduced by Hans-Jürgen Quest. With comments by Heike Schröder, in: Remembering Hans-Jürgen Quest, Münster 2004, pp. 296–298.
4. ↑ Herbert Schütte: "Here is urbi et orbi", says the pastor from Michel, in memory of Hans-Jürgen Quest, pp. 9-11.
5. ↑ The importance of minorities for the Church. In: Memory of Hans-Jürgen Quest. Pp. 111ff., 159f., 192, 126ff. u.ö.
6. ↑ people without a dream. Lecture at the "Forum Last Supper" of the 18th Ger. Ev. Church Congress 1979 in Nuremberg. In: Memory of Hans-Jürgen Quest, pp. 193–203.
7. ↑ Erdmuthe Quest: Study trips. In: Memory of Hans-Jürgen Quest, pp. 293–295.
8. ↑ Remembering Hans-Jürgen Quest, p. 146, "More Love", p. 312.

predecessor	Office	successor
Hans-Heinrich Harms	Senior Pastor at St. Michaelis, Hamburg 1967–1987	Helge Adolphsen