Church district of Soest-Arnsberg

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The Evangelical Church District Soest-Arnsberg is one of 27 church districts of the Evangelical Church of Westphalia . It was created on January 1, 2019 through the (re) unification of the previous church districts of Soest and Arnsberg. The superintendent is based in Soest . Dieter Tometten has been the superintendent since 2019.

location

The church district Soest-Arnsberg is located in the district of Soest and in the Hochsauerlandkreis in North Rhine-Westphalia . It borders clockwise from the south on the church districts Wittgenstein, Lüdenscheid-Plettenberg, Iserlohn, Unna , Hamm, Gütersloh and Paderborn as well as on the church district Twiste-Eisenberg of the Evangelical Church of Kurhessen-Waldeck and on the deanery of Biedenkopf-Gladenbach of the Evangelicals Church in Hesse and Nassau (North Rhine-Westphalian town of Hallenberg in the Hessian-Nassau parish of Bromskirchen ). The parish of Medebach is an exclave of the parish, as the parish of Winterberg , which lies between it and the parish of Olsberg - Bestwig , and whose area extends from Niedersfeld to the Hessian border, belongs to the parish of Wittgenstein.

Communities and cooperations

The Evangelical Church District Soest-Arnsberg comprises 28 parishes over an area of ​​around 2,700 km², which are grouped into nine regions (as of 2020). About 105,000 parishioners belong to the Soest-Arnsberg parish; there are around 90 pastors and vicars active (as of 2019).

Since the merger of the two previously independent church districts, Dieter Tometten, who was previously superintendent of the Soest church district, has been the superintendent and thus the leading clergyman. His term of office ends on May 31, 2020; Manuel Schilling was elected as his successor.

Together with the neighboring districts of Iserlohn and Lüdenscheid-Plettenberg, the church district operates the joint Evangelical District Church Office Sauerland-Hellweg in Iserlohn for administrative and advisory tasks . Other institutions in which the church district is involved are the Diakonie Ruhr-Hellweg in Arnsberg (together with the church districts Hamm and Unna), a kindergarten association with open all-day elementary schools and family centers, and the Stift-Cappel vocational college in Lippstadt .

history

The city of Soest and its rural surroundings, the Soest Börde with ten parishes , and the city of Lippstadt have been almost completely Protestant since the introduction of the Reformation in the 16th century. Soest and the Börde came to Brandenburg-Prussia in the 17th century ; Lippstadt was a condominium of Brandenburg-Prussia and the county of Lippe . The remaining area of ​​today's church district, ie the Hellweg area around the cities of Werl , Erwitte and Geseke as well as the eastern and southern Sauerland , belonged to the Duchy of Westphalia in the Electorate of Cologne ; here the attempts to introduce the Reformation could not prevail. In 1816 the Duchy of Westphalia and its Catholic population fell to the Kingdom of Prussia , which combined its old and newly acquired Westphalian territories to form the Province of Westphalia . In 1817 King Friedrich Wilhelm III. the formation of the United Evangelical Church in Prussia , which was divided into church provinces and church districts in accordance with the state administrative division. Within the ecclesiastical province of Westphalia , the total of 21 Protestant parishes in Soest, the Soest Börde and in Lippstadt were assigned to the Soest parish that was founded in 1818 . The district synod met regularly in Soest, occasionally also in Lippstadt. In the following decades, evangelicals moved into the towns of the former Duchy of Westphalia and evangelical parishes were established; those from the Hellweg area and most of the north-eastern Sauerland joined the Soest parish.

After 1933 Bruno Adler , since 1925 pastor of the parish of Weslarn in Soester Börde and leader of the German Christians in Westphalia, became the first and only bishop (provincial bishop) of the Westphalian provincial church.

In 1964 the Protestant parishes in what is now the Hochsauerlandkreis separated from the Soest parish and formed the Arnsberg parish. Since January 1, 2019, the two church districts have been reunited to form the new church district Soest-Arnsberg.

public events

The 400th anniversary of the death coming from Lippstadt fighter against the persecution of witches , Anton Praetorius , in November 2013, the church district of Soest, in cooperation with various partners a series of public events with an exhibition "Anton Praetorius and the Witch Trials" in Soest by and written to a Public Word of the Evangelical Church District Soest on the persecution of witches .

literature

  • Karlfriedrich Schikora: We want to live and die by the gospel. History of the church districts of Soest and Arnsberg. From the beginnings of Christian church planting until today . 2. changed u. updated edition. Bielefeld 2012, ISBN 978-3-7858-0568-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Evangelical Church District Soest-Arnsberg on the website of the Evangelical Church of Westphalia, accessed on March 5, 2020
  2. ^ Church district Soest-Arnsberg, superintendent
  3. ↑ Evangelical Church District has new superintendent: Dr. Manuel Schilling prevails. Sauerlandkurier , January 20, 2020.
  4. ↑ Evangelical District Church Office Sauerland-Hellweg accessed on March 5, 2020
  5. ^ A b Karlfriedrich Schikora: History of the Soest Church District ( Memento from January 11, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ^ Exhibition Anton Praetorius and the witch trials, November 2013. PDF, accessed on March 5, 2020
  7. ↑ Ecumenical memorial service for the victims of the witch hunt in the 16th to 18th centuries, Lippstadt, November 20, 2013 with a reprint of the public word. Retrieved March 5, 2020.

Coordinates: 51 ° 34 ′ 10.2 "  N , 8 ° 6 ′ 43.3"  E