Simmern church district

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The Simmern parish was a parish of the Rhine Province of the Evangelical Church in Prussia from 1817 to 1948 and a parish of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland from 1948 to 1972 . In 1972, he merged with the Church District Trarbach to Kirchenkreis Simmern-Trarbach .

history

The historical roots of the church district go back to 1410. Duke Stefan von Pfalz-Simmern-Zweibrücken and his marriage to Anna von Veldenz, who died in 1439, received the county of Veldenz after the death of her father in 1444 through the Palatinate inheritance . With that, Stephan ruled over the upper offices of Lichtenberg , Baumholder and Meisenheim as well as over the Veldenz parts of the county of Sponheim . He also owned the bailiwick of the Chumbd and Ravengiersburg monasteries .

Duke Johann II was referred to by an observer at the Nuremberg Diet in 1523 as magnus observator Lutheri , but - despite all sympathy for evangelical concerns - remained Catholic throughout his life.

Only his son Friedrich III. introduced the Reformation on July 16, 1557 . Through the Trarbach bailiff Friedrich von Schönberg, he announced: “First of all, godly teachers who were taught and godly were to be employed in all the most noble churches ... Therefore, he could no longer allow mass and other abuses to be worshiped”.

After Friedrich also became elector of the Palatinate, he extended the Reformation to the Vordere Grafschaft Sponheim. In 1561 he switched to the Reformed Confession . This is expressed outwardly in the Palatinate Church Ordinance of 1563 and the introduction of the Heidelberg Catechism . However, since Simmern was ruled by his younger brother Georg from 1559 to 1569 and Brother Reichard from 1569 to 1598, it remained Lutheran . The Reformed denomination was only established here with the integration of Simmern as a senior office in the Electorate.

The Thirty Years' War and the Orléans War strengthened the Counter Reformation. The former Duchy of Simmern lost almost half of its 18 Protestant pastors.

The first Simmern pastor usually worked as an inspector of all pastors, the first Kirchberg pastor as an inspector for the Reformed parishes in the Kirchberg district of Vordersponheim.

During the French period , the areas on the left bank of the Rhine fell to France in 1801. The parishes of the later parish of Simmern were assigned to four Lutheran and five Reformed local consistories with around 6,000 parishioners each. Attempts at that time to bring about a union were not approved by the Paris government.

When the Hunsrück became part of Prussia as a result of the Congress of Vienna , its district boundaries were also transferred to the church structures in 1817. Thus the Protestant district community - later the Evangelical Church District  - Simmern came into being.

Social policy initiatives

Pastor Georg Karl Julius Reuss , Simmern, and parish vicar Albrecht Julis Schöler, Horn, established the rescue facility in 1850, the confirmation facility in 1857 and a preparatory facility to prepare elementary school students for the training of elementary school teachers in 1869, the forge establishments between Simmern and Nannhausen the parishes of the church district of the social needs, the need for evangelical upbringing of people in the diaspora and education.

Another significant accent was set by Pastor Richard Oertel , Neuerkirch , in 1893 when the Hunsrück Farmers' Association was founded. Oertel was able to win over 5,000 members for this peasant interest organization. The Raiffeisen cooperative system, to which dairies belonged, among other things, strengthened the farmers' self-help and awakened their sense of class. With the establishment of the Agricultural School ( Agricultural Winter School ) in Simmern and his membership in the Prussian Landtag and German Reichstag , Oertel was able to set further political accents.

Confessing Church

The story of the Dickenschieder pastor Paul Schneider is of great importance for the church district during the National Socialist era . He was involved in a Hunsrück parish fraternity within the Confessing Church , which included about half of the pastors of the parish of Simmern a. a. Friedrich Langensiepen in Gödenroth. The other pastors were mostly unorganized, only a few adhered to the German Christians . Superintendent Gillmann, himself not a member of the Confessing Church, campaigned for Schneider several times.

Communities

Superintendent

  • 1818–1843 Franz Karl Back, Simmern
  • 1843–1879 Friedrich Back , Kastellaun
  • 1879–1883 Georg Karl Julius Reuss , Simmern
  • 1883–1907 Georg Friedrich Hugo Oertel, Simmern
  • 1907–1932 Friedrich Gustav Theodor Schneider, Rheinböllen
  • 1932–1959 Ernst Karl Gillmann , Simmern
  • 1959–1967 Wilhelm Voget, Kastellaun
  • 1967–1972 Günther Kempgen, Neuerkirch-Biebern (then until 1988 Superintendent of the Simmern-Trarbach church district)

literature

  • Dieter Diether: The houses of God in the Evangelical Church District Simmern-Trarbach . Church district Simmern-Trarbach, Kirchberg (Hunsrück), 1998
  • Evangelical children's home Schmiedel: Hunsrück children's home Auf'm Schmiedel, hostel in the desert. 120 years, 1850-1970; a commemorative publication and a gift from friends . Auf'm Schmiedel children's home, Simmern, 1970
  • Ernst Gillmann (ed.): Our church in the Rhenish Oberland . Verlag Glaube und Heimat, Simmern 1954, DNB 965999386
  • Ernst Gillmann: On the Reformation anniversary of the Hunsrück . Printed by Böhmer, Simmern, 1957
  • Horst Hörpel: Schmiedel yesterday and today. Contributions to the past and present . Argenthal 2007
  • Andreas Metzing: The development of the denominational landscape in the area of ​​today's church district Simmern-Trarbach between the Augsburg religious peace and the Palatinate religious declaration (1555–1705) . Online at regionalgeschichte.net (library, texts, articles). Also in: Monthly Issues for Evangelical Church History of the Rhineland , 55 (2006), pp. 219–232.
  • Andreas Nikolay: Pastor Richard Oertel (1860–1932) and the Hunsrück Farmers' Association. A socio-historical-biographical study (= series of publications by the Hunsrücker Geschichtsverein, 32). Hunsrück History Association, Mengigart, 2001, ISBN 3-9804416-9-5 . At the same time Univ.-Diss. Mainz, 2001.
  • Albert Rosenkranz : The Evangelical Rhineland: a Rhenish parish and pastor's book (= series of publications by the Association for Rhenish Church History, 3). Kirche in der Zeit, Düsseldorf, 1956, DNB 454196482 , p. 532ff
  • Gustav Schellack, Willi Wagner: Festschrift for the 425th anniversary of the Reformation. 1557–1982 (Moselle - Hunsrück - Nahe) . Church district Simmern-Trarbach, Kirchberg (Hunsrück), 1982, DNB 830015388

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ quoted from: Rosenkranz, p. 532