Church district Bielefeld

The Evangelical Church District Bielefeld is one of 27 church districts within the Evangelical Church of Westphalia . Its area is largely congruent with the city of Bielefeld . Christian Bald has been the superintendent since November 2018.

location

The Bielefeld church district comprises the northern and central districts of the city of Bielefeld in North Rhine-Westphalia . From the south it borders in a clockwise direction on the parish of Gütersloh (to which the southern districts of Brackwede , Senne and Sennestadt belong), the parishes of Halle and Herford and the Lippische Landeskirche .

In since 1614 to Brandenburg-Prussia belonging county Ravensberg which had been in the 16th century Reformation enforced. In addition to a large Lutheran majority, there were also individual Reformed congregations. When administration was standardized in the province of Westphalia, which was newly established after the Congress of Vienna , the Bielefeld parish (at that time still called the "Diocese") was founded as one of four parishes for the former Minden-Ravensberg area . The few evangelical parishes in the area of the bishopric Paderborn , the principality of Corvey , the rule of Rheda and the county of Rietberg also belonged to the parish of Bielefeld. In 1840 the parishes of Halle and Paderborn were spun off from the parish of Bielefeld and the parish of Jöllenbeck was taken over from the parish of Herford . In 1949 the southern part formed the newly founded parish of Gütersloh .

In the 19th century the church district was strongly influenced by pastors of the revival movement such as Johann Heinrich Volkening , Clamor Huchzermeyer and Carl Siebold . From their work, the Evangelical Johanneswerk developed , which, along with the Von Bodelschwingh Foundation Bethel, also located in Bielefeld, is one of the largest diaconal institutions in Germany. In 1905, the Bethel Church University was also Germany’s first church university in Bielefeld. In the church struggle in 1934, Gustav Münter, a supporter of the Confessing Church (BK), was elected superintendent. The leading BK pastor Wilhelm Niemöller was also pastor in Bielefeld. Because the building of the consistory of the Westphalian provincial church in Münster had been completely destroyed in 1945, the successor authority was initially set up temporarily in Bethel after the end of the war. Bielefeld thus became the seat of the independent Evangelical Church of Westphalia.

1818–1843: Johann Heinrich Scherr (previously Superintendent of the County of Ravensberg )
1843–1853: Ludwig Heidsieck
1853–1872: Ernst Wilhelm Müller
1872-1894: Clamor Huchzermeyer
1894–1901: Otto Greve
1901–1910: Friedrich Simon
1910–1912: Paul Siebold
1913–1921: Johann Friedrich Lappe
1921–1934: Heinrich Köhne
1934–1949: Gustav Münter (until 1937 as superintendent administrator)
1949–1969: Martin Busse
1969–1992: Ortwin Steuerungagel
1992–2001: Martin Hülsenbeck
2001–2018: Regine Burg
since 2018: Christian Bald

Matthias Benad , Hans-Walter Schmuhl (ed.): Departure into modernity. The Evangelical Church District Bielefeld from 1817 to 2006. Publishing house for regional history, Bielefeld 2006, ISBN 3-89534-642-X .
Helmut Geck (ed.): Church districts, district synods, superintendents . LIT Verlag, Berlin / Hamburg / Münster 2004, ISBN 3-8258-7565-2 .