Royal Examination Commission in Spiritual Matters

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The Royal Examinations Commission in spiritual matters (also called Immediate Examinationskommission or Immediatexamenskommission for short ) was a Prussian censorship authority.

Background and function

It was set up by the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm II by cabinet order to the Minister of State and Justice and Head of the Spiritual Department Johann Christoph von Woellner on May 14, 1791 to comply with and monitor the religious edict issued by Woellner three years earlier . Its aim was to regulate religious and spiritual activities in Prussia .

Up until then, a senior consistory watched over the edict of July 19, 1788, which has now been expanded to include three councilors. These included Hermann Daniel Hermes , Hofrat Gottlob Friedrich Hillmer and the preacher Theodor Carl Georg Woltersdorff . The board of examiners should be headed by three councils. Their task was, among other things, to examine candidates for the pastor's office and school office as to whether they were "not infected by the harmful errors of the current neologists and so-called enlighteners ".

One of the best-known victims of this censorship authority was Immanuel Kant with his book The Religion within the Limits of Mere Reason, first published in 1793 . The theologian Karl Friedrich Bahrdt was forced to resign from his teaching post due to the new regulations.

literature

  • Udo Krolzik: The Wöllnerische Religionsedikt online
  • Uta Wiggermann: Woellner and the religious edict. Church politics and ecclesiastical reality in Prussia in the late 18th century. (Contributions to historical theology, vol. 150) Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2010.