Cologne tolerance dispute
The Cologne tolerance dispute describes the dispute between the citizenship, the clergy and the Council of the City of Cologne over a council resolution passed by a narrow majority. The decision made in 1787 was to respond to a request from Protestant citizens to exercise their religion freely .
history
After the Reformation
Since the Lutheran Reformation , tolerance and hostility towards non-Catholics have alternated in Cologne.
Even when Archbishop Hermann von Wied wanted to carry out the Reformation of the Archdiocese of Cologne , he was suspended and excommunicated in the spring of 1546 on the intervention of the Cologne residents with Pope Paul and Emperor Karl . The decision rendered death sentences against Clarenbachstift and Fliesteden in 1529, the later city references evangelical Christians and the conditioning separate cemeteries ( misery cemetery , Geusenfriedhof ) outside the city, showed that other faiths, even if it were Christians, were undesirable.
Report by Hermann von Weinsberg
Hermann von Weinsberg , a councilor of the city in the 16th century, vividly described in his memorial book the different denominational burial regulations of his time:
"Anno 1578 January 9th. are two wealthy burgers , raitzgenoissen , died, Gerhart von Hontum, in the Schildergassen wonhaftich, and Gerhart Koen on the Steinwechsel. Disser was buried at Klein Sant Mertin with the 4 medals, because he was a good catholic. But Hontum was of the ausperger confession , drumb wolt the pastor Columbe as nit allow wiewol he Begert at siner housewives to time because, hour daruff that one of uis have stat buried in sult. But while he was at zit geweltrichter , he was buried alone with the bontworteramt and gaffelgesellschaft uff den Ellendigen kirchoff , then he was laughed at ir banner and a stone cirlich uff sin grave and name wapen and title date were written on it. Mod disse zit waiting nemans different dan catholischn allowed in the stat in churches or kirchoiffen to bury, dan the nit under a formative communicern wolt, or sin children in kirspeln laisses deufen or Calvinist , geussich , martinisch , widderdeufischs and would otherwise serviceable uisgefoirted to Weierporzen and buried there in a field, or wherever you go in dan, where field of Geusen kirchoff was gnant. "
Emigration or expulsion
Immigrants of the Catholic faith such as the de Groote family, who emigrated from the Netherlands in the 16th century, were welcome in Cologne, achieved prosperity and even achieved high political offices. But if they belonged to the "false Confessio", they had a difficult position. In 1594, Cologne Protestants submitted a complaint to the Reichstag in Nuremberg in which they listed and complained about the religious policy of the Cologne Council in 26 points. Since the complaints remained fruitless, many Protestant families left the city.
The Mennonite family Vondel, who fled Antwerp because of the Counter Reformation to Cologne , did not stay long either and moved to Amsterdam after the birth of their son Joost . The Rubens family , who had fled to Siegen and bought a house at 10 Sternengasse in Cologne , did not stay long. The general preacher of the “ Welsh Reformed Congregation ”, “Jan Bourgois”, who was arrested in early 1600 , was expelled from the city. In the following year, due to a “morning address” (customary announcements of resolutions from the balcony of the town hall arbor ) by the council, in which “protection and protection” were canceled by the city, 300 Protestants left the Cologne area. The city's reprisals against people of religious affiliation other than Catholic continued over the centuries.
Petition and Council Decision
In November 1787 the council voted on a protestant petition . In this they asked for permission to "quietly practice their religion" and for consent to build a prayer and school house. Mayor Franz Jakob Josef Freiherr von Hilgers achieved a narrow majority in the council meeting for the matter . The Reichshofrat , which had to examine this decision ignoring the constitutional norms, approved the Cologne reform efforts and approved the project in December of that year. In the city, however, the opposition to the project increased. Above all, the Catholic guilds, the entire clergy of the city and the Archbishop of Cologne and Elector Maximilian Franz of Austria , a brother of Emperor Joseph II , protested the council decision. A controversy lasting almost two years resulted in the council withdrawing its approval under pressure from the protests. The disputes of the 1780s went down in Cologne history as a "tolerance dispute". Only with the forced liberalization after the occupation by the French troops did religious freedom enter Cologne. The monastery church of the Cologne Order of Antonites was granted to the Protestants as their first own place of worship after secularization in 1802.
Literature / sources
- Joseph Hansen (ed.): Sources on the history of the Rhineland in the age of the French Revolution 1780-1801. First volume: 1780-1791. With an appendix "Table of Contents of the Sources" edited by Stephan Laux (= Publications of the Society for Rheinische Geschichtskunde, Vol. XLII / 1), Düsseldorf 2003.
- Carl Dietmar: Die Chronik Kölns , Chronik Verlag, Dortmund 1991, ISBN 3-611-00193-7 .
- Hermann von Weinsberg : Liber Senectutis , digital edition online .
- Rudolf Löhr: Protocols of the Dutch Reformed Congregation in Cologne 1651 - 1677 , 2 vols., Rheinland Verlag Düsseldorf: Cologne 1971.