Harald Kalnins

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Harald Kalnins (born July 20, 1911 in Saint Petersburg ; † October 27, 1997 ) was the first bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Central Asia , in short: ELKRAS (initially: "Superintendent" of the German Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Soviet Union, in short: DELKSU).

Life

Harald Kalnins came from a German-Latvian marriage. He received his theological training between 1933 and 1937 at the seminary in St. Chrischona in Basel . He performed his vicariate in Alsace .

Jesus Church in Riga

In 1951 Kalnins was ordained pastor by Archbishop Gustav Turs in Riga . Kalnins served in the following years mainly as pastor of the Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church in the parish of the Jesus Church in Riga. From 1969 he also received state permission to visit Russian-German Evangelical Lutheran congregations east of the Urals . In addition to his duties in Riga, he visited the 550 German Lutheran congregations in the republics of the Soviet Union for many years. In 1980 he was appointed their (largely unauthorized) superintendent . In 1988 the representatives of some important congregations appointed him bishop of the newly founded German Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Soviet Union. On November 13, 1988 he was introduced to his office in the Jesus Church.

He continued this office during the difficult upheaval until his age-related resignation in 1994. His successor in the church leadership of the ELKRAS, which has meanwhile moved to St. Petersburg, was Georg Kretschmar , former professor of church history and the New Testament at the University of Munich. Kalnins stayed in Latvia and until his death looked after the German communities in that country that had emerged under his leadership.

Fonts

  • Lutheran Service in the Soviet Union . Special issue from Lutheran Service. Journal for Church Life and Diaspora Aid , ISSN  2196-5978 , Vol. 27 (1991), No. 2.
  • Dialogue at night. Sermon on John 3: 1-8 . In: Lutheran Church in the World. Yearbook of the Martin Luther Association , ISSN  0170-3935 , vol. 39 (1992), pp. 9-12.

literature

  • Martin Grahl: Bishop Harald Kalnins. In: Lutheran Service. Journal of the Martin Luther Association , ISSN  2196-5978 , Vol. 47 (2011), No. 4, p. 21.
  • Walter Graßmann: History of the Evangelical-Lutheran Russian Germans in the Soviet Union, the CIS and in Germany in the second half of the 20th century. Parish, Church, Language and Tradition. Munich 2006 (Munich, University, dissertation, 2004) online (PDF; 9.16 MB) , especially the chapter On the Way to the Church - Harald Kalnins , pp. 238–268.
  • Matthew Heise: Art. Kalnins, Harald . In: Timothy J. Wengert (ed.): Dictionary of Luther and the Lutheran traditions . Baker Academic, Grand Rapids 2017, ISBN 978-0-8010-4969-9 .
  • Helmut Tschoerner: In memory of Harald Kalnins and Wilhelm Kahle. In: Lutheran Church in the World. Yearbook of the Martin Luther Association , ISSN  0170-3935 , vol. 45 (1998), pp. 203-209.
  • Joachim Willems: Lutherans and Lutheran Congregations in Russia. An Empirical Study of Religion in the Post-Soviet Context. Martin-Luther-Verlag, Erlangen 2005, ISBN 3-87513-142-8 (dissertation, University of Hamburg, Protestant Theol. Faculty, 2003).

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Matthew Heise: Art. Kalnins, Harald . In: Timothy J. Wengert (ed.): Dictionary of Luther and the Lutheran traditions . Baker Academic, Grand Rapids 2017.
  2. ↑ Press release of the Gustav-Adolf-Werk Württemberg: From Riga to Lake Constance , April 4, 2017.
  3. ↑ The representative for emigrant issues and national minorities : Koschyk informs himself about the work of the German Evangelical Lutheran Church in Latvia. Exchange of views and information with Pastor Markus Schoch , press release from February 27, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Kalnins, Harald
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German clergyman, bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church
DATE OF BIRTH July 20, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH St. Petersburg
DATE OF DEATH October 27, 1997