North Schleswig community

The Nordschleswigsche Congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Northern Germany is a free church under Danish law and was founded in 1923 by members of the German minority in Denmark .

Goal setting

The aim of the North Schleswig community was formulated in the first statute in 1923 and described in § 2: "The aim is to maintain and promote German church services and church life in connection with the Evangelical Lutheran regional church of Schleswig-Holstein ". This objective was not recorded again in the newer statutes, but still apply under the changing circumstances of the northernmost Ev.-Luth. Part Church of Germany.

organization

The Nordschleswigsche congregation is a free church under Danish law, the specialty of which is that it is headed by a lay committee that is elected by the church representatives' assembly. The administration of the congregation lies with the church office of the congregation in Tingleff . The German pastors of the Danish Volkskirche in the four cities of North Schleswig and the pastors of the North Schleswig congregation form a joint convention, which meets under the chairmanship of the senior of the North Schleswig congregation.

history

The referendum in 1920 in the northern part of the old Duchy of Schleswig led to the formation of cultural organizations and institutions of the German minority now living in Denmark . In the church area, the Danish government agreed to a regulation that secured German-speaking church supplies in the four cities of Aabenraa , Hadersleben , Sonderburg and Tondern , each with its own pastor for the German population. In addition, it was assured that German-speaking church supplies could be provided in the country where there was a corresponding need. The previous pastors should face a vote on their further whereabouts in their congregations. 112 pastoral posts were affected, of which more than half of the incumbents had left their posts before the vote. To the astonishment of the Danish side, 35 of the 42 pastors who stood for the vote were confirmed in office. A total of 44 pastors from the Prussian period remained in their offices. The restrictive handling of the determination of a German-speaking church need on March 25, 1923 in Tingleff led to the establishment of the "Evangelical Lutheran Congregation of the Schleswig-Holstein State Church in North Schleswig". The initiator and responsible for this establishment was the merchant Jacob Nissen from Tingleff, who was also elected as the first chairman of the community. As the first pastor, Fritz Gottfriedsen was introduced to his office on April 29, 1923 by the Holstein general superintendent Peter Friedrich Petersen . His district included the parishes of Tingleff , Gravenstein , Holebüll, Klipleff and Uk. This was followed on April 1, 1924 Pastor Harald Boyens with official residence in Lügumkloster and the district with the parishes of Bedstedt, Lügumkloster, Rapstedt and Hoist. The negotiations with the Schleswig Consistory resulted in an agreement in which the election of the pastors should be made by the board of the congregation, the appointment and, if necessary, recall and the introduction into the office of clergy as well as the visitation right should be carried out by the general superintendent. This agreement also contained the final name of the new free church: "Nordschleswigsche Gemeinde der Evangelisch-Lutherische Landeskirche Schleswig-Holstein", which expanded to seven parish districts in the following period.

The time of National Socialism and the Second World War with the occupation of Denmark by German troops led to the collapse of the North Schleswig community in 1945. The pastors were interned or expelled because of their German citizenship, and the supplies of the congregations were makeshiftly maintained by the German city pastors of the Danish national church who remained in their offices. During the occupation they kept a critical distance from National Socialism and made this clear to the outside world within the scope of the possibilities.

After difficult negotiations between the Danish national church on the one hand and the Schleswig-Holstein regional church and the external office of the Evangelical Church in Germany on the other hand, which came about mainly because the Danish side had an interest in clarifying the Danish-speaking church supply of the Danish minority in southern Schleswig, succeeded in a new beginning in 1948: On October 17, 1948, the bishop of Schleswig Reinhard Wester ordained the Tingleff-born cand theol in a festive service. Hans Egon Petersen and introduced him to his post as the first post-war pastor of the North Schleswig community. Petersen came from a family that, as an avowed Christian, held a leading position in the “Friends of the Breklumer Mission” association . During his studies in Halle and Tübingen, he himself belonged to the student community of the Confessing Church. Bishop Wester, who had also been a leading member of the Confessing Church during the Nazi era , insisted after the experiences of the Nazi era that there had to be a strict separation of church and politics and charged the new pastor with the demand “Church Church must remain “to take this concern into account, which initially led to considerable irritation because such a strict separation had not existed in North Schleswig. 1948-50 Pastor Petersen, who lived in Lügumkloster, was the only pastor in the community and was responsible for supplying the entire rural area of North Schleswig. In 1950 the pastor Friedrich Jessen, who came from Lautrup, took over the pastor's office in Tingleff and thus took care of the eastern part of North Schleswig. In 1951, Pastor Andreas Schau from Tønder took over the pastor's position in Hoyer as the third person . In 1954, the North Schleswig community was recognized as a whole, which by 1962 expanded to include seven parishes. Since the founding of the North Elbian Evangelical Lutheran Church in 1970, the North Schleswig community has also changed its name accordingly. In 2005, financial problems in the North Elbian Church meant that two pastoral positions in North Schleswig had to be deleted. Church care in the country is now provided by the pastors of the five remaining parishes.

literature

Gottfried Horstmann: The history of the North Schleswig community . Hadersleben 1930
Friedrich Jessen: Church in the border region (writings of the local history study group for North Schleswig, issue 27). Aabenraa 1973
Ingrid Riese, Peter Jessen Sönnichsen: Through the ages - 75 years of the North Schleswig community . Tingleff 1998, ISBN 87-986795-0-3
Günter Weitling : The history of the church in East Jeypore 1924 - 1964: Relations between the Breklumer Mission and North Schleswig and Denmark . Ammersbek near Hamburg. Verl. An der Lottbek. 1998. 781 pp. Mission - Ecumenism - World Responsibility; Vol. 2, ISBN 3-86130-054-0
Günter Weitling: German church life in North Schleswig since the referendum in 1920 . Published by the Bund Deutscher Nordschleswiger and archive / historical research center of the German ethnic group, Aabenraa 2007, ISBN 978-87-991948-0-3

Web links

Homepage of the North Schleswig community

Individual evidence

↑ Hendrik Niether: "A hoard, a bulwark ... against everything that turns against Germanness " , In: Journal of the Society for Schleswig-Holstein History , Vol. 133 (2008).

[1] Hendrik Niether: "A hoard, a bulwark ... against everything that turns against Germanness " , In: Journal of the Society for Schleswig-Holstein History , Vol. 133 (2008).