Church district Aachen
The Aachen church district is one of the 37 church districts in the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland (EKiR) based in Aachen . To him are nine parishes with 77,498 (13.5%) Protestant church members in a total population of 583,922 (December 31, 2017) It covers the area of the Aachen region (excluding the city of Eschweiler ) and parts of Euskirchen . Two small parts of the community belong to the Düren district .
history
Protestantism already gained a foothold in the area of the later church district during the Reformation . Although the council of the imperial city of Aachen tried to enforce the Roman Catholic denomination, the majority of the population around 1550 was Protestant. In 1548 there was the first Lutheran service in Zweifall , today part of Stolberg (Rhineland) . In 1559 the entire county of Schleiden became Lutheran.
The Reformed denomination came to the area mainly through Dutch religious refugees , so that from 1572 there was a Reformed community in Lürken , which was given up in 1963 because of the open-cast lignite mine "Zukunft West". According to a resolution of the Synod of Emden (1571), the congregation belonged to the “Cologne class” with the two Reformed congregations in Cologne, the Reformed congregations in Maastricht, Limburg, Neuss and the Duchy of Jülich, i.e. to form a joint assembly area.
Protestantism was suppressed during the Counter Reformation and could only develop again after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. As the oldest still existing Protestant church in the region, the Vogelsang Church was built in Stolberg in 1647 , the Lutheran Church in Zweifall was added in 1684, and the Reformed Finkenberg Church in Stolberg in 1725 (to replace an older wooden church). The tolerance patent of Emperor Joseph II and the French occupation in 1794 brought the Protestants equal rights. Since 1803 they have also been able to celebrate services in the Anna Church in the city of Aachen .
When the area became part of the Prussian Rhine Province through the Congress of Vienna in 1815 , Protestantism became a state-sponsored denomination. According to the request of King Friedrich Wilhelm III. From 1817 the Lutheran and Reformed congregations merged to form United congregations. With the Rhenish-Westphalian Church Ordinance of 1835, the possibility of a merger of the parishes was given.
At that time, the parishes in Aachen (Reformed and Lutheran), Burtscheid , Eupen , Gemünd , Imgenbroich , Kirschseiffen , Lürken , Monschau , Roetgen , Schleiden , Stolberg (Reformed and Lutheran), Vorweiden and Zweifall belonged to the Aachen church district .
In 1838 the Rhenish Provincial Synod transformed the previous church districts of Aachen, Düren and Unterrur into the church districts of Aachen and Jülich .
The new church district Aachen now included the communities Aachen (uniert), Burtscheid , Eupen , Imgenbroich , Kirschseiffen , Lürken , Monschau , Roetgen , Schleiden , Stolberg (Reformed and Lutheran), Vorweiden and Zweifall .
The Aachen Synod then constituted itself as the supreme body of the new church district, to which the communities in the region now belonged. Because of the great importance of the Synodal Constitution, the church district itself was also called Synod Aachen for a long time .
Several communities were later founded: Malmedy - Sankt Vith (1856), Preußisch-Moresnet (1862), Roggendorf (1867), Herzogenrath (1903), Alsdorf - Baesweiler (1931). Moresnet, Malmedy-St. Vith and Eupen were lost as a result of the First World War in 1920. In 1948 a student parish office was established in Aachen.
The proportion of Protestants rose sharply with industrialization and again with the refugee movement after 1945, so that numerous new communities emerged. In recent years there have been some mergers between neighboring communities.
management
According to Rhenish church law, the church district is led by the district synod , which usually meets twice a year, by the district synodal committee and by the superintendent . Pastor Hans-Peter Bruckhoff has been the superintendent since 1996.
Today's churches
- Aachen (including Church of St. Anne , Church of the Resurrection , Church of the Holy Trinity , Church of Reconciliation , Church of Galilee, Church of Immanuel)
- Baesweiler - Setterich - Siersdorf (Friedenskirche, Gnadenkirche)
- Christ Church Alsdorf - Würselen - Hoengen - Broichweiden (including Martin Luther Church Alsdorf, Martin Luther Church Würselen)
- Herzogenrath (Markus Church, Lukas Community Center in Kohlscheid , Martin Luther Church in Merkstein)
- Kornelimünster - Zweifall ( Evangelical Church Zweifall )
- Monschauer Land (including Evangelical City Church Monschau , Evangelical Church Roetgen )
- Roggendorf
- Stolberg ( Finkenberg Church , Vogelsang Church, Frankental parish hall in Unterstolberg , Martin Luther Church in Aachen-Brand )
- Trinitatis parish Schleidener Tal (inter alia. Evangelical Church Gemünd (Schleiden) , Evangelical Church Harperscheid , Evangelical Church Heimbach (Eifel) )
literature
- Synodal map of the Protestant parishes of the Rhine Province. Julius Joost publisher in Langenberg.
- Hans-Georg Dreess: Protestant places of worship in the parish of Aachen. District synodal committee Aachen 1986, DNB 978694759 .
- Albert Rosenkranz : The Evangelical Rhineland: a Rhenish parish and pastor's book (= series of publications of the Association for Rhenish Church History, Vol. 3). Kirche in der Zeit, Düsseldorf 1956, DNB 454196482 , pp. 24–40.
Web links
- Homepage of the Aachen church district
- Overview of the archive holdings in the archive of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland
Individual evidence
- ^ Church district . In: Evangelical Church District Aachen . June 27, 2018 ( kirchenkreis-aachen.de [accessed February 12, 2019]).
- ↑ Church Life 2017 Congregational Members and Denomination Share , accessed on September 10, 2019
- ↑ Rosenkranz: The Evangelical Rhineland ; P. 360.
- ↑ a b c d Rosenkranz: The Evangelical Rhineland ; P. 24.