Hermann Zaiss

Hermann Zaiss (born September 3, 1889 in Untertürkheim ; † November 14, 1958 ) was a German evangelist and committed to the healing movement. He is the founder of most of the Ecclesia congregations .

Childhood and early missionary service

Hermann Zaiss was already converted as a teenager through the influence of the so-called "Hallelujah blacksmith" Christian Stürmer. He studied theology in Berlin (Alliance Bible School), London and Lausanne , before traveling to Ghana in 1911 with the Basel Mission as a mission merchant. During the First World War he came into English captivity, where over a hundred prisoners were converted in the prison camps on the islands of Man and Wight in his vicinity. Miracle healings are said to have already taken place here.

After his release from the prison camp, he started a small business as a razor blade manufacturer. After twenty years of turning away from the faith due to the disappointing way of life of devout Christians, he claims to have heard a clear commission from God for missionary service in 1944.

Missionary work

Zaiss first began to preach and proselytize in private surroundings in the Solingen-Ohligs area. Later, weekly meetings for the “hardworking and loaded” took place in a wooden barracks that had been expanded several times. His way of speaking is described as "as juicy Swabian as it is centrally biblical, powerful and hands-on". By 1956, Zaiss claims to have reached up to 1 million people with his meetings. Although he did not intend to found new congregations, the desire of many new converts to be able to stay together as a congregation led to the establishment of over 300 local congregations in Germany by 1958, including a congress and conference center in Ohligs, which also served to train around 200 congregation leaders . Likewise, he initially did not place any explicit emphasis on teaching miraculous signs, although many healing miracles are said to have accompanied his sermons. However, he always emphasized the biblical statements, according to which the confession of spiritual gifts , miracles and other signs belong to the preaching.

At the height of his work, lecture tours also took him abroad to Holland , Denmark , Austria , France , Switzerland , Canada and India . The initiative for large-scale evangelizations mostly came from him, but he was also invited by congregations or individuals. Some organizers then joined his community movement.

On November 14, 1958, Zaiss died in a traffic accident. Characteristic of the strong bond between his church work and his person, despite the continuation by his widow Clara, is the sharp decline in the number of churches to only around half by 1965. Zaiss is referred to in the same source as the only great healing evangelist in Germany due to the lack of other German preachers his format American healing preachers such as B. William Branham and Hides followed.

Many of the communities founded by Zaiss still exist today, but often under different names and in other associations. Even in Austria, Switzerland, Holland and other European countries there are still a number of communities to this day. The speeches by Zaiss are distributed in writings and tapes to this day.

Annunciation style

Characteristic of Zaiss is his “awakening, fundamental Christian teaching, which has many analogies to the Pentecostal movement. ... the message would be delivered to the publishers through the Holy Spirit. Infant baptism is rejected; baptism occurs as adult baptism after a credible testimony of his conversion. The Lord's Supper is only given to those who affirm the basic beliefs of the Ecclesia. ” He castigated pious hypocrisy and railed against all dead pious traditions, which earned him some criticism. Again and again Zaiss spoke out against any external formality. Attempts have been made several times to accuse him of praying with the sick against the Heilpraktiker-Gesetz.

criticism

Criticism of the person Zaiss sparked mainly on his fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible in his faith and life practice. Initially, the community still lacked the regulatory elements of a church and theology. To this day, the voluntary, now partly part-time pastors have a very dominant position within their congregation. Thus, beliefs are very much dependent on the respective church leadership. The relationship to the regional church and to the ecumenical movement, especially in southern Germany, is repeatedly burdened by attempts to poach it from the Ecclesia.

Already during his lifetime Zaiss sharply criticized the rigid tradition and liturgy of the church and thus strained relations with the popular churches: “The far more weighty reason was his extremely sharp criticism. On the one hand, he spoke openly against deadlocked traditions that were no longer determined by a living relationship with Jesus and the Bible, but by dogmas. He radically rejected the doctrine of baptism of the regional church (baptized = Christians) and also chalked off the legal ossification of the Darbysts, the so-called 'old assembly'. On the other hand, he vehemently railed against the so-called scientific biblical criticism, triggered by R. Bultmann. "

The view “ in which Zaiss represented the usual basic ideas of the healing movement: Illness is the result of sin; he who believes and is converted will be healed; whoever is not healed or relapses again is also not in order in terms of faith ”.

literature

(see also references)

• Hermann Zaiss: God's imperative: be healthy! Marburg ad Lahn: Hermann Rathmann publishing house (1958)
• Paul Gerhardt Voigt: health and salvation. An examination of Hermann Zaiss and his movement . Hanover: Lutherhaus-Verlag, 1959
• Peter Schneider: Lame people dance under the pulpit. Signs and miracles in the services of Hermann Zaiss . Leuchter Edition, ISBN 978-3-87482-026-4 , published 2008, paperback, approx. 210 pages. Commented text quotations are linked on the Beauty of the Simplex website .

Web links

• Literature by and about Hermann Zaiss in the catalog of the German National Library
• ECCLESIA Christian Church

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Karl von Hutten: seers, brooders, enthusiasts , edited by the Evangelical Central Office for Weltanschauungsfragen of the EKD, Stuttgart 1982
2. ↑ ^{a b c} article The healing movement in Germany on bibel-wissen.de
3. ↑ List of member communities in Germany ( Memento of the original dated February 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ↑ ^{a b} Description of the person Zaiss on religio.de
5. ↑ Tim Linder: Hermann Zaiss (“The first biography about Hermann Zaiss”), Verlag R. Brockhaus, can only be obtained from Ecclesia ( order address ( Memento of the original dated February 8, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and still not checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. )