Church loan
A church loan ( Wiedemuth or Wiedmuth ) is a piece of land, the income of which is used to support a clergyman or a church employee (e.g. cantor or church school teacher). Originally, the respective fiefdom was tied to a specific body, the owner of which drew his income in whole or in part. Church fiefs as a legal form emerged in the Middle Ages as part of the feudal system and some of them continue to exist today. Both parishes of many Protestant regional churches and Catholic parishes have church fiefs connected with them to this day. The church loan was and is the most widespread form of the benefice or prebend.
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Church fiefs in the narrower sense described here are to be distinguished from fiefdoms given by the emperor in the Middle Ages to bishops, cathedral chapters and abbeys, which led to the formation of large land or territorial lords or so-called spiritual principalities. They were almost always associated with the church patronage of the parishes lying on the fief and with secular rights of rule, especially the jurisdiction over the subjects living there. This was not the case with parish or church loans.
When a pastor, deacon, etc. took office, there was no formal enfeoff, because the clergyman did not become the owner of the feudal property, but only the beneficiary of the income. The fiefdom itself always remained connected to the church for which it was originally given. Even the bishops or the corresponding ecclesiastical authorities of the Protestant regional churches could not change the purpose of a church loan.
Most church loans arose when the secular church patron gave a parish landed property. This foundation secured certain honorary privileges for the patron and his heirs (seat in the choir or patronage box , burial in the church) and the right to present the pastor. As the population grew in the late Middle Ages and early modern times, new jobs often had to be created to ensure the pastoral care of the larger communities. These were each endowed with their own fiefs. Likewise, parish schools and the employment of cantors were increasingly established from the 15th century onwards , which led to the establishment of church schools and cantorates.
A large, well-equipped parish therefore often has half a dozen different fiefdoms, such as B. Pfarrlehn, Archidiakonatslehn, Diakonatslehn, Kirchschullehn, Cantoratslehn. In the narrowest sense, the term Kirchlehn only refers to the property on which the church building and the associated cemetery are located.
Every parish loan usually included agricultural land (usually more than 1 hoof ), a piece of forest and the rectory itself with a large kitchen garden. The other church fiefs were smaller and some of them were barely enough to support the post holder, especially after the Reformation among the Protestants, where the deacons often had families of their own.
In the past, many pastors managed the church loan in whole or in part, which is why many pastoral households often included the servants and maids necessary for this. In the course of the 19th century the land was leased more and more and since the 20th century the rent has been the most important part of the income from church loans everywhere. In some places there is also the rental of apartments and the sale of wood from the parish forest.
With the abolition of the feudal system, in most German states during the first half of the 19th century, the church fiefs preserved as a special legal status for real estate and they were as owners of their land in the land registry entered. In this respect, church loans are comparable to foundations; their assets are managed in trust by the parish council , which also decides on the use of the income. It is not only bound by civil law, but also by church law ( canon law for Catholics , and the law of the individual regional churches for Protestants).
Church school loan dispute
The separation of church and state by the Weimar Constitution of 1919 influenced the further handling of church school loans, because the state often had school buildings built on them in the 19th century. As long as a state church existed, in Saxony z. B. the Evangelical Lutheran regional church, it was irrelevant whether the church school loan belonged to the state or the parish. After 1919, however, the ownership rights to the land and the building had to be clarified. This process was called the church school loan dispute.
The aim was to unite both rights in one hand. There are two possibilities for this: 1. selling the fiefdom to the political community, 2. selling the building to the parish and renting or leasing the school for teaching purposes. In the interwar period, many communities lacked the money for the first option; The second way was often not feasible because the parishes could not or would not bear the renovation costs for the often ailing school buildings. The church school loans and with them the unclear legal status remained in place for decades in many communities.
In the area of the Saxon regional church z. B. In many places they outlasted the GDR, which fell in 1990. In Saxony only after the conclusion of the State Church Treaty with the Free State in March 1994 did the matter move again. Since then, the parishes have been trying intensively to sell their church school loans. Their value has, of course, fallen sharply in many places, as many village schools have been abandoned due to the low number of children and often no buyer can be found for the church schools.
literature
- Adam Cortrejus: Discursus Juridicus De Jure Patronatus Ecclesiastici: From Pfarrlehn. Diss. Jena 1665.
- Herbert Kalb: Article church loan . In: Walter Kasper, Konrad Baumgartner u. a. (Ed.): Lexicon for theology and church. 3. Edition. Freiburg im Breisgau 1997, ISBN 3-451-22006-7 .
- Gerhard Otto: Ownership and rights of use under public law on the Saxon church school. Leipzig 1933.
Web links
- Guidelines of the Evangelical Church in Germany on the administration of church property from October 11, 1985, in Official Journal d. EKD 1985, p. 439
- Parish regulations of the Evangelical Lutheran Regional Church of Saxony (1983, amended in 1998), § 40: Administration and representation of the property of the parish and the church fiefdom
- Keyword Kirchenlehen in: German legal dictionary (with numerous references).
- Church loan . In: Meyers Konversations-Lexikon . 4th edition. Volume 9, Verlag des Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1885–1892, p. 762.