Rhenish-Westphalian church order

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Rhenish-Westphalian Church Order (1835): Royal Cabinet Order and Table of Contents

The Rheinisch-Westfälische Kirchenordnung (RWKO) from 1835 was a church ordinance which, through its connection of the presbyterial-synodal order with the traditional consistorial constitution, became the model for many other evangelical church ordinances of the 19th and 20th centuries. Within the Evangelical Church in the Kingdom of Prussia it was only valid for the Rhine Province and the Province of Westphalia .

background

The Reformation had gained a foothold in the duchies of Jülich-Kleve-Berg , but it was not enforced through the authorities, so that no sovereign church regiment existed. The mostly Reformed congregations had initially joined the organization of the Dutch Reformed Church and followed the principles of the presbyterial-synodal order laid down by the Wesel Convention of 1568. At the General Synod of Duisburg in 1610, the Reformed congregations gave each other a common organization, which was concluded by the church ordinances of 1662 (for the now Prussian Kleve-Mark ) and 1671 (for the Palatinate-Neuburgic Jülich-Berg ). In Kleve-Mark, the Lutheran congregations also adopted a church ordinance in 1687, in which - in contrast to the other Lutheran churches in Germany - the presbyterial-synodal order was enforced.

When these areas became the core areas of the new Prussian western provinces as a result of the Congress of Vienna in 1815, there was an expectation in the communities that the traditional self-government of the church would at least be preserved, or perhaps become a model for the entire western provinces or even the entire kingdom. In this sense, many theologians from the Rhineland and Westphalia (e.g. Wilhelm Bäumer , Wilhelm Ross ), but also from Berlin (e.g. Friedrich Schleiermacher ) advocated the introduction of a presbyterial-synodal church constitution in writings and petitions. In fact, King Friedrich Wilhelm III initiated . 1817 a reform of the church constitution for the entire monarchy, discussed in 1819 provincial synods. In 1821, however, the king put an end to the constitutional discussion because in the age of the Restoration any suggestion of democratic tendencies was frowned upon. Even in the western provinces, the Evangelical Church should have a consistorial structure, even if the synods (as pure clergy synods ) could still meet. In 1828 general superintendents were installed in all provinces , thus introducing an element of the episcopal church constitution.

But because the king wanted to enforce his united agendas in all Prussian provinces, he was forced to concession in the Rhineland and Westphalia. In lengthy negotiations, the draft of a church ordinance was worked out, which was favorable to the supporters of the presbyterial-synodal church constitution; on March 5, 1835, the church order was put into effect by a cabinet order .

content

The church ordinance contained in 148 paragraphs the provisions on the organization of church life on three levels: first on the level of the local parishes (§§ 1–33), in which presbyteries held the leadership (in parishes with more than 200 members there were also larger ones local councils), then at the level of the "circle communities" (§§ 34-43; according to current terminology Church circles ), in which circuit sYNODS passed, and the "Provincial" community (§§ 44-52), for which there is in each case a rheinische and Westphalian Provincial Synod. Further sections dealt with the election and duties of pastors (§§ 53–74), the worship service and official acts (§§ 75–116) and questions of supervision and visitation (§§ 117–147). With § 148, however, it is made clear that the synods only had advisory functions, but that the actual power of the church and the external church sovereignty remained with the state authorities. The provincial consistory in Koblenz and Münster exercised disciplinary power in conjunction with the general superintendent appointed by the king. Thus three of the four demands of the presbyterial-synodal movement were implemented, the election of pastors by the parishes, the composition of all committees by pastors and elected representatives and the leadership of the synod by officials elected for a period of time; the decisive demand, namely the exercise of church power by the synods, remained unfulfilled. Therefore, the RWKO has often been characterized as a “mixed system”, or as a “compromise that combines the two inherently opposite principles of a consistorial constitution and a synodal constitution”. Contemporaries, however, spoke of “ecclesiastical constitutionalism” because the model was related to political constitutionalism with its combination of representative and authoritarian elements.

Post-history and revisions

Since the introduction of the RWKO, efforts have been made to rebuild the church constitution elsewhere in Prussia and Germany, based on its model, and thus to realize “ecclesiastical constitutionalism”. At the suggestion of Education Minister Friedrich Eichhorn , King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. Therefore had district and provincial synods throughout Prussia discussed a reform of the church constitution from 1843 onwards. As a result, the Prussian General Synod requested in 1846 that presbyteries and synods be set up in the entire Kingdom and that elements of the Rhenish-Westphalian Church Ordinance be adopted (in a weakened form). However, this was rejected by the king because he rejected the presbyterial-synodal order. The Minister of Culture Maximilian von Schwerin-Putzar , who was appointed as a result of the March Revolution in 1848 , introduced a presbyterial-synodal constitution for the entire regional church, but could not achieve it in his short term of office. It was not until the Minister of Education and Cultural Affairs Adalbert Falk that the consistorial constitution was supplemented by consultative synods based on the model of the RWKO in 1873 with the parish and synodal order and in 1876 with the general synodal order. Previously, similar mixed constitutions had been introduced in some other territories (e.g. Duchy of Oldenburg in 1853, Grand Duchy of Baden in 1861, Kingdom of Hanover in 1864); almost all others followed by the beginning of the 20th century. The existence of synods was a decisive prerequisite for the self-organization of the Protestant churches to be relatively smooth after the end of the monarchies in 1918, with which the sovereign church regime also ended.

In the western provinces, however, the supporters of the presbyterial-synodal order were not satisfied with the compromise reached and tried to work towards a revision soon after the church order was issued. A new version was drawn up between 1848 and 1853, which would have meant a strengthening of the presbyterial-synodal elements, but was also not confirmed by the king. Only a preamble with statements about the state of confession, which was missing in the church ordinance of 1835, was added in 1855 and adopted unchanged in the subsequent church ordinance of 1923. An important addition was not made until 1893, when executive boards were created as permanent organs for the district and provincial synods, which meet only annually or every three years. When the Evangelical Church of the Old Prussian Union was reconstituted after the elimination of the sovereign church regiment, a comprehensively revised church order for the church provinces of Rhineland and Westphalia was adopted on November 6, 1923. The regional churches of Westphalia and the Rhineland, which became independent after the end of the Second World War, gave themselves church ordinances in 1952 and 1953, in which the influence of the RWKO from 1835 was still clearly visible.

Source editions

literature

  • Walter Göbell: The Rheinisch-Westfälische Kirchenordnung of March 5, 1835. Vol. 1: Their historical development and their theological content. Düsseldorf 1954.
  • Jörg van Norden : Church and State in the Prussian Rhineland 1815–1838. The genesis of the Rhenish-Westphalian church order from March 5, 1835. Rheinland-Verlag, Cologne 1991.
  • Ernst Bammel: The Rhenish-Westphalian church order and its influence on the Prussian regional church. In: Rheinische Vierteljahrsblätter 55, 1991, pp. 232-251.
  • Wilhelm H. Neuser : The emergence of the Rhine-Westphalian church order. In: JF Gerhard Goeters , Rudolf Mau (Hrsg.): History of the Evangelical Church of the Union. Volume 1: The beginnings of the Union under the sovereign church regiment 1817-1850. Leipzig 1992, pp. 241-256.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. § 81
  2. ↑ Georg Ris: The "Church Constitutionalism". Main lines of constitution formation in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Germany in the 19th century. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 1988, p. 69.
  3. ^ Joachim Mehlhausen : Church between state and society. On the history of Protestant church constitutional law in Germany (19th century). In: Vestigia Verbi. Essays on the history of Protestant theology. de Gruyter, Berlin 1999, p. 157.
  4. ^ Wilhelm H. Neuser: The revision of the Rheinisch-Westfälische Kirchenordnung. In: Joachim Rogge , Gerhard Ruhbach (Hrsg.): History of the Evangelical Church of the Union. Volume 2: The independence of the church under the royal summit episcopate (1850–1918). Leipzig 1994, pp. 78-97; Jörg van Norden: Church between reaction and revolution: The revision of the Rhenish-Westphalian church order 1843-1853. In: Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 114, 2003, pp. 1–20.