Julius Fischer (clergyman)

Julius Fischer (born July 20, 1867 in Zehdenick , † March 2, 1923 in Berlin ) was the founder of the Apostle Ministry of Judah .

Life

Activity in the New Apostolic Church

Fischer was an inland boatman by profession. Wage trips with his boat took him to many cities such as Berlin, Breslau, Stettin and Hamburg, where he became a member of the New Apostolic congregation in 1896 . He had his first missionary successes among professional colleagues in his hometown, who joined him to form a New Apostolic congregation.

In order to be permanently available to her, he sold his barge and opened a grocery store in Zehdenick with a coal trade, a trucking company and a restaurant. A small chapel was built in Zehdenick, and his initiative led to other New Apostolic congregations in Liebenthal , Hammer , Liebenwalde , Fürstenberg , Himmelpfort and Ravensbrück . Fischer was appointed district elder for all of these communities.

Foundation of the apostolic office of Judah

In 1901 there were serious differences of opinion between Fischer and the Berlin leadership of the New Apostolic Church. While the latter was waiting for the second coming of the Son of God on a certain historical day, Fischer believed that Christ had already returned "in the flesh" of the newly called apostles.

After a dispute with Chief Apostle Friedrich Krebs , Fischer was expelled from the Apostolic Congregation in the spring of 1902. A considerable number of the community members entrusted to the fishermen remained loyal to him. The excluded continued to celebrate their services in the traditional form.

On Friday, May 2, 1902, Fischer celebrated church service with his supporters in Zehdenick. After his sermon a man named Schröder called out: "And you are the young lion from Judah who will break the seven seals (Revelation 5, 5)". Several parishioners declared that they had seen that Christ laid his hand on Fischer's head as a blessing figure of light. Based on this prophecy, the community gave itself the name of Judah's apostolic office .

Further activity

Fischer now moved to Gransee west of Zehdenick, where he bought a brick factory in which many community members worked. The business ceased, but following on from his activity as a skipper, Fischer was able to attract a considerable number of friends in Silesia . By 1914 he was able to divide the apostolic office of Judah into six tribes. He put a Chief Apostle at the head of each tribe . The end of the war brought a new period of prosperity to the community. Fischer edited his book Truth Science and the monthly magazine Truth Science, the Revolution in the Spiritual Field . The number of Chief Apostles rose to the biblical number of twelve.

Although Fischer tried to shape his community uniformly at annual meetings of the Apostles since 1920 , divisions soon ensued. Several of these apostles, who presided over numerically considerable tribes, recognized Fischer as apostles in Judah not as superior, but only as apostles with equal rights. In 1921 Gustav Rhode separated with his followers under the name of Apostle Office Johannes von Fischer. In 1922 Bruno Zielonkowski followed in Liegnitz with the apostle ministry of Jesus Christ , which was not identical to the religious community of the same name that still exists today.

In the same year Fischer raised the skipper Adolf Tschach (1891-1981), who had only joined the community in 1918, to the position of Apostle Bishop and later designated him as his successor, but some of the officials did not agree with the appointment. After Fischer's death on March 2, 1923, several apostles and ministers separated from Tschach, who was only 31 years old. By far the most important group was formed around the apostle Simeon (Hermann Krüger), who has been called the Apostle Ministry of Jesus Christ since 1947 .

literature

• Helmut Obst : The theology of Julius Fischer, the apostle Judah. A contribution to the teaching and history of special Christian communities in the Rhineland . In: Monthly Issues for Evangelical Church History of the Rhineland , Jg. 25 (1976), pp. 181–196 ( online ).
• Horst Reller (Ed. For the VELKD working group on behalf of the Lutheran Church Office): Handbook of Religious Communities. Free churches, special communities, sects, ideological communities, new religions. 2nd Edition. Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, Gütersloh 1979, ISBN 3-579-03585-1 .

Web links

• Julius Fischer in APWiki