Church seminar abroad

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The church seminar abroad , originally called the diaspora seminar, was the training center of the Evangelical Church of the Old Prussian Union for German pastors abroad from 1911 to 1938.

history

At the beginning of 1911 the Evangelical Church of the older provinces of Prussia decided to create a separate theological seminary for the German-speaking parishes on the Río de la Plata in southern Brazil ( Rio Grande do Sul , Santa Catarina ) . Around 1900 over 1000 Germans emigrated to Brazil every year .

The first seminar was held as the "Evangelical Diaspora Seminar" in Soest , Paulistraße 15. Men with primary school qualification were able to study theology here. The Evangelical High Church Council took the exam . This was followed by a one-year vicariate in the country of assignment.

The first director of the seminar was Johannes Hymmen . With the beginning of the First World War , the candidates for military service were drafted and the seminar was closed. In 1919 an attempt to resume teaching was unsuccessful.

In 1920 the Oberkirchenrat moved the seminar to the Martineum in Witten an der Ruhr, where August Krieg took over the management. The occupation of the Ruhr and inflation also hindered teaching here, so the seminar should be relocated to rural areas. In 1923 the preacher's seminary , which had recently been founded, was relocated to Stettin -Kückenmühle in the Johannesstift Berlin-Spandau . In 1924 the diaspora seminar also went to Stettin-Kückenmühle.

In the meantime, university theologians had also gone to South America as pastors, so that disputes arose as to which training was appropriate and necessary. Thereupon the Evangelical Oberkirchenrat (EOK) decided to align the training more closely with university studies. In 1930 the seminar was moved to Ilsenburg in the Harz Mountains. The castle , which fits into the old Benedictine monastery complex, the monastery, the monastery park and the Marienhof in the village were leased for this.

Hermann Schlingensiepen became the new director in May 1933 . The ecclesiastical seminar abroad was subordinate to the Foreign Office of the German Evangelical Church . Since Schlingensiepen and the majority of the international church seminar rejected the path of the Reich Church and also of the foreign bishop Theodor Heckel , the seminar was placed under the leadership of the Confessing Church at the end of 1934 . As a result, Schlingensiepen was revoked by the National Socialist state's license to teach. There was an arson in the office of the director in Ilsenburg Castle. In August 1935, the EOK prohibited new students from being accepted. In November the seminar was deleted from the German university list. At the same time, the EOK undermined the work of the seminar. In 1936, for example, a convalescent home for church workers was set up in the castle, and scholarships for pastors abroad were advertised at universities. In September 1936, the EOK had signs put up on the Ilsenburg buildings. a. read: “The seminar is closed. Entering the rooms is only permitted with special permission. Finance department of the Evangelical Oberkirchenrat ”. At the same time, the students received letters in which they were promised help in changing the training facility if they submitted to the Church Foreign Office. A large number of the students contradicted this request, so that the seminar continued to work illegally from October 1936. Teaching now took place conspiratorially in various places, including a. at Otto Illies in Wernigerode, in Seehausen , in Langenweddingen or in Halle / Saale. The exams also had to be kept secret. Schlingensiepen was imprisoned for taking such an exam. The last exams took place in the summer of 1939.

After the Second World War, the evangelical pastors for German parishes in South America were briefly trained at the proseminar in São Leopoldo . Then the theological faculty was established at the University of São Leopoldo.

Up until the 1950s, some Brazilian pastors were also trained at the Neuendettelsau mission and diaspora seminar .

Teachers and students (alphabetical)

Teacher

  • Friedrich Buschtöns (1895–1962) from 1924 to 1928
  • Max Dedekind from 1920 to 1924 (?)
  • Ludwig Doormann (1901–1992), cantor in Göttingen from 1930 to 1936 (church music)
  • Gerhard Gloege (1901–1970) from 1930 to 1933
  • Johannes Hymmen (1878–1951) from 1911 to 1920 (all subjects)
  • Hermann Lechler (coming from Brazil) from 1930 to 1936 (church history, Brazilian cultural studies, Portuguese)
  • Ernst Schlieper (later lecturer at the faculty in São Leopoldo) 1933 to 36
  • Hermann Schlingensiepen from 1933 to 1938 (New Testament, dogmatics, ethics)
  • Thiele (philosophy, Greek)

Adjuncts during the illegal period

The exams were held by representatives of the church administration. The examiners included a. Fritz Müller from Dahlem and Heinrich Albertz .

Students during the time of the church struggle

Edmund Asshauer, Otto Beutelmann (from Stanislau ), Heinrich Buntrock, Wilhelm Daum (from Stanislau), Fritz Eisele, Bernhard Ernst (from Stanislau), Rudolf Franz, Siegfried Hartmann, Adolf Kaden, Hans Kieckbusch, Adalbert Knees, Reinhold Meyer, Ernst Mittelmann , Karl Ossenkop (senior), Ernst Quack, Bernhard Römisch, Philipp Rücker (from Stanislau), Friedrich Sander, Karl Peter Steglich, Edwin Wilm, Waldemar Ziegler

Library

The Ilsenburg seminar library contained around 14,000 volumes. A large part of the library was integrated into the library of the seminary in Wittenberg in 1985.

proof

  1. ↑ At the meeting of the Old Prussian Brother Council on September 26, 1935, the financial risks of continuing the seminar were taken over by the Brother Council. See Wilhelm Niemöller: The Synod of Steglitz , Göttingen 1997, p. 137
  2. ↑ Friedrich Sander The Church Foreign Seminar in: Ferdinand Schlingensiepen (ed.) Theological Studies in the Third Reich , Düsseldorf 1998, 9-76, 51
  3. ↑ Some of the examination documents are in the archive of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland, Schlingensiepen inventory. Documentation of the underground work can be found in the Internet exhibition Evangelical Resistance .
  4. ↑ Ludwig Doormann A Life for Church Music , Göttingen 1988