Pennsylvania Ministry
The Ministry of Pennsylvania (from 1781 with the addition: An Ev. Luth. Ministry in North America , 1792: The German Evangelical Ministry in Pennsylvania and Adjacent States ) was not a ministry in the modern sense, but the first Evangelical Lutheran ecclesiastical body in North America Ground. ( Latin minister 'servant'; here in the sense of 'servant' or 'ministerial office of God')
The ministry was established on August 15 . / August 26, 1748 greg. Founded in Philadelphia by pastors of the United Congregations based on the model of the German spiritual ministries under the direction of Henry Melchior Mühlenberg . It took on church supervisory functions such as the publication of agendas and hymns , ordination and visits , first in Pennsylvania, then also in neighboring colonies along the North American east coast.
While at first only clergymen could become members, the constitutional amendment of 1792 under Justus Henry Christian Helmuth also made it possible to send lay delegates. At the same time, the name was changed, since a New York Ministry had also been established.
In 1820 the ministry, which kept this name, even if it had more of a synod character in the meantime, was one of the founders of the general synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the USA , one of the predecessor institutions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America .
In 1864 the ministry established the Philadelphia Lutheran Theological Seminary.
The name did not go out until 1962 with the formation of the Eastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Lutheran Church in America (Eastern Pennsylvania Synod, LCA).
literature
- Helen E. Pfatteicher: The Ministry of Pennsylvania. Oldest Lutheran Synod in America Founded in Colony Days. A Short History Drawn from Source Material. Ministry Press, Philadelphia 1938.
Web links
- On the history of the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia ( Memento from January 19, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- Jump up ↑ John Reumann: Muhlenberg's Ministry, Ben Franklin's Deism, and the Churches of the 21st Century . Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, Grand Rapids / Cambridge 2011, ISBN 978-0-8028-6246-4 , pp. 72 (English, limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed June 5, 2017]).