Jakob Koch (theologian)

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Jakob Koch , also Jakob Koch (I.) (born April 10, 1744 in Ortenburg ( Bavaria ); † August 22, 1822 in Wallern an der Trattnach ), was the first pastor of the Protestant tolerance community of Wallern and the founder of the Koch dynasty .

Life

The son of a master baker studied Protestant theology at the University of Altdorf and then hired himself as a private tutor. From 1776 to 1782 he was vicar in Poppenreuth (Fürth) , Fürth and Nuremberg .

When the time of crypto-Protestantism in Austria finally belonged to the past with the tolerance patent of Emperor Josef II and the supporters of the Evangelical Lutheran creed were able to live their faith publicly and form their own parishes, he had the chance to take up his vicarage in Nuremberg in exchange for a pastorate To swap Upper Austria. On September 2, 1782, he was offered to take over the pastorate in Wallern. After he had received the state license on October 16 to exercise the office of pastor in this parish , he left his previous place of work and traveled to Wallern, where he arrived on November 19. There he moved into the preacher's and schoolteacher's apartment provided for him and held his first service in the community on the 1st Sunday of Advent in 1782.

On April 19, 1784, he laid the foundation stone for a new prayer house , in which services were held until the Trinity Church was built (1851–1853).

Like other pastors of the Upper Austrian tolerance congregations, Pastor Koch was also exposed to attacks from the Catholic Church in the first years of his work. But he had to struggle even more with resistance from within his own ranks: as a pastor elected by the parish and not appointed by the church authorities, he had a special obligation to his fellow brothers and sisters. However, these were - shaped by the difficult conditions under which they had to live their faith in the time between the Counter Reformation and the Tolerance Patent - still clinging to old traditions, which the church authorities rejected as outdated and no longer in keeping with the times . Only gradually could the pietistically minded tolerance communities, once pressured from outside, but uninfluenced by the tutelage of the authorities and dogmatic disputes, get used to subordinating themselves to an ecclesiastical authority. Finding the right balance between the wishes of his congregation and the orders of the superiors was a task that required Pastor Koch to be particularly sensitive. That he took the side of his community rather than the higher church administrative authority in resolving the contradictions is shown by the Upper Austrian hymnal controversy, which at the time caused a lot of strife among fellow believers. The dispute was about which hymn books were allowed to be used in the communities and which songs were to be sung. Since the parishes refused to replace their old hymn books from Regensburg or Ortenburg with modern hymn books printed in Austria and printed in Austria, Superintendent Thielisch called on the state government on September 4, 1784 to give the parish leaders the right to determine the hymn books, to withdraw and to transfer to the superintendent and the preachers. However, after violent protests by the tolerance communities, this project was finally abandoned. It was agreed on the introduction of a hymn book, which, in addition to new and modernized songs, also contained old, albeit revised songs. Pastor Koch even succeeded in being able to print a separate hymnbook for the community of Wallern, albeit one that was heavily modified by the censorship.

When Jakob Koch died in 1822 at the age of 78, the Protestant parish in Wallern could look back on 40 years of existence. His son Jakob Ernst followed him as pastor of Wallern.

Familiar

Jakob Koch was married to Anna Magdalena Nieremberger (1756-1816). She came from aristocratic circles and had a comprehensive humanistic education.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Koch, Geschichte der Evangelischen Kirchengemeinde Wallern (1881), p. 33 ff .; Quotation in the yearbook of the Society for the History of Protestantism in Austria, 1901, p. 72
  2. ^ History, geography and statistics of the Archduchy of Austria ob der Enns and the Duchy of Salzburg, Volume 3, p. 319, Linz 1830
  3. ↑ Günter Merz, Church Leader and Church Authorities Observations Using the Example of the Evangelical Parishes of Upper Austria 1781 to 1866 Yearbook of the Society for the History of Protestantism in Austria, 2011, page 101 f
  4. ↑ Excerpt from Dietlind Pichler's family tree of the Koch family: Life in the rectory - a bourgeois life, in the appendix: The Koch family and the Ludwig family. Printed in the yearbook of the Society for the History of Protestantism in Austria, 2004, p. 209
personal data
SURNAME Koch, Jakob
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Koch, Jakob I. (numbering in Protestant literature)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION first pastor of the tolerance community Wallern an der Trattnach
DATE OF BIRTH April 10, 1744
PLACE OF BIRTH Ortenburg near Passau
DATE OF DEATH August 22, 1822
Place of death Wallern on the Trattnach