Confederation of Protestant Churches in Lower Saxony

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Confederation of Protestant Churches in Lower Saxony
Basic data
Council President: Ralf Meister , State Bishop Hanover
Head / Authorized Office: Higher regional church councilor Andrea Radtke
Founding year: 1971
Member churches: 5
Members: approx. 3.8 million
(2014)
Address: Rote Reihe 6
30169 Hanover
Website: [1]

The Confederation of Protestant Churches in Lower Saxony is a confederation of five Protestant regional churches in the territory of the State of Lower Saxony . The seat of the office of the Confederacy is Landeskirchenamt Hanover Church of Hanover settled the Lutheran Evangelical.

Member churches

The Confederation of Protestant Churches in Lower Saxony represents around 3.8 million parish members (as of 2014). The following regional churches, which are all member churches of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), belong to it:

Territory and history

The area thus extends over the entire state of Lower Saxony. Since some regional churches, especially the Evangelical Reformed Church, but also congregations outside of Lower Saxony belong, the territory of the Confederation de jure also extends to these congregations. But that has no meaning in practice.

The confederation was formed in 1971. The reason was the fact that the state of Lower Saxony wanted a single point of contact for church issues. In contrast to other German states, where there are usually only one or two, occasionally three or four regional churches that have a share in the state, there are five regional churches in Lower Saxony.

After the first attempt to merge the churches in Lower Saxony failed in 2009, talks on the merger have been ongoing since March 2011. The Lower Saxony Catholic Office performs similar tasks for the Roman Catholic dioceses in Lower Saxony.

tasks

The confederation represents the common concerns of the Protestant churches vis-à-vis the state of Lower Saxony and in this respect continues the content of the treaty concluded in 1955 between the Protestant churches in Lower Saxony and the state of Lower Saxony (the so-called Loccumer Treaty ).

Facilities

The confederation is the sponsor of various institutions for all member churches, including:

  • Court of Justice as a joint constitutional and administrative court
  • Labor and service law commissions
  • Arbitration boards and arbitration commissions
  • Examination Office

Facilities in the Evangelical Media Service Center

Association of Protestant Journalism

In the Association of Evangelical Publishing Lower Saxony-Bremen gGmbH (VEP), the member churches of the confederation perform their journalistic tasks together with the Bremen Evangelical Church . The association performs the task of the publisher of the Evangelical Press Service in Lower Saxony and Bremen (epd Lower Saxony-Bremen). The VEP is closely connected to the Evangelical Church Radio Lower Saxony.

Evangelical newspaper / church radio

The Evangelical Church Broadcasting Corporation of Lower Saxony (ekn) gGmBH and the Evangelical newspaper for the churches in Lower Saxony are also under the joint responsibility of the confederation .

Institutions in the House of Church Services

Some institutions in Lower Saxony that are assigned to the House of Church Services are also sponsored .

Several regional churches participate in the association Encounter of Christians and Jews Lower Saxony e. V. , which is affiliated with the House of Church Services. The Church Development Service (KED) of the regional churches of Hanover and Braunschweig is affiliated with the HkD.

From 1979 to 2002 the representative for environmental issues (environmental representative) of the regional church of Hanover was also the environmental representative of the Confederation. The office was located at the head of the Office for Community Service (today: House of Church Services ). The first incumbent was Paul Gerhard Jahn (1979–1990), followed by Hans Joachim Schliep (1990–2000) and Dine Fecht (2000–2002).

Further

In addition, the Missionswerk Niedersachsen exists as a joint institution of several member churches .

The Pastoralkolleg Niedersachsen in Loccum has been a shared facility of several churches in Lower Saxony since 2016 , but is sponsored by the regional church of Hanover. The preachers' seminar of the Hanoverian regional church in Loccum is also used due to agreements made by the member churches of the confederation.

The social welfare work in Lower Saxony has been responsible for the diaconal tasks of the member churches since January 2014 .

The Association of Church Employees in Hanover is the association and interest group for church employees in the Confederation of Protestant Churches in Lower Saxony.

Bodies

The leading body of the Confederation is the Council of the Confederation , in which the leading clergy (bishops or regional superintendents) and officials from all five regional churches sit. The chairman of the “Council of the Confederation” is currently the Hanover regional bishop Ralf Meister .

The administration of the confederation is the responsibility of the office. She is chaired by Andrea Radtke, regional church councilor of the Hanoverian regional church. Radtke is also the representative of the council at the Lower Saxony state parliament .

The confederation only performs tasks that are assigned to it by the regional churches. It represents the interests of the Lower Saxony regional churches vis-à-vis the state of Lower Saxony.

plenipotentiary

The authorized representatives are Oberlandeskirchenratsin Andrea Radtke (as head of the office) and Oberlandeskirchenratsin Kerstin Gäfgen-Track for education and theology.

Former bodies

As a “parliament”, the confederation had a synod with 48 synodals until 2014 . These decided on the laws and finances of the Confederation. In January 2015, the legislative tasks were returned to the regional synods.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.landeskirche-hannovers.de/evlka-de/wir-ueber-uns/konfoederation
  2. ↑ http://www.landeskirche-hannovers.de/evlka-de/wir-ueber-uns/konfoederation
  3. ↑ http://www.landeskirche-hannovers.de/evlka-de/wir-ueber-uns/konfoederation
  4. ↑ www.taz.de .
  5. ↑ http://www.vepnb.de/index.html
  6. ↑ http://www.diakonie-in-niedersachsen.de/pages/presse/pressemommunikations/subpages/diakonisches_werk_in_niedersachen_ist_gegruendet/index.html
  7. ↑ https://www.landeskirche-hannovers.de/evlka-de/wir-ueber-uns/landeskirchenamt
  8. ↑ http://www.landeskirche-hannovers.de/evlka-de/wir-ueber-uns/konfoederation