Schwenkfelder Church
The Schwenkfelder Church is a Protestant church in the United States that goes back to the Silesian reformer Kaspar Schwenckfeld . The church has its beginnings in the radical Reformation movement of the Schwenkfeldians (or Schwenckfelder ) in the 16th century in Central Europe .
The first community arose in the mid-1520s around Schwenckfeld in his birthplace Ossig near Lüben in what was then the Duchy of Liegnitz . In the course of the Reformation , the movement spread across Silesia , Lusatia , Bohemia and southern Germany . Most Schwenckfeldians disappeared as a result of persecution during the Thirty Years' War . Since then there have only been small congregations in predominantly Lutheran Lower Silesia . The last European believer is said to have died in Harpersdorf in the Prussian province of Silesia at the beginning of the 19th century .
history
As early as the 16th century, the first Schwenkfeldian circles and communities were formed in Silesia and southern Germany . However, the Thirty Years' War led to the end of the Schwenkfeldians in southern Germany. In parts of Silesia, and especially in Lower Silesia, communities of the Schwenkfeldians were able to survive. Among other things, there was also contact with the Anabaptists and later with the Quakers . There were also letters to the Lutheran Pietist Philipp Jakob Spener . Nevertheless, the Silesian Schwenkfeldians were increasingly under pressure from the Austrian authorities, who viewed the Schwenkfelders as heretics. Under Charles VI. and the Jesuit commissioned by him, the violent recatholicization finally reached its climax. Several petitions to the Viennese court asking for religious tolerance could not change this either. Between 1725 and 1736 around 500 Silesian swing fields finally fled to property belonging to the founder of the Moravian Brethren von Zinzendorf in Herrnhut and Berthelsdorf in Upper Lusatia in Saxony . Around 180 of them left here in April 1734 via Altona and Haarlem to Rotterdam , from there to emigrate to Pennsylvania on the English ship St. Andrew via Plymouth in southern England . In Altona and Haarlem they found material and financial support from the Mennonite families van der Smissen and van Buyssant. The van der Smissen family, for example, took in the refugees for a few days and then took over the costs for the further crossing from Altona to Haarlem. In September 1734 the group finally reached Pennsylvania. As a token of gratitude for their liberation from religious oppression and their safe arrival, the group agreed to keep September 24th as a memorial day. Even today, September 24th is celebrated as part of the collective memory of the Schwenkfeldians as memory day with a service, speeches and songs. As with the arrival of the emigrants, the participants still receive traditional apple butter after the service . While the Schwenkfeldians initially concentrated in the city of Philadelphia , in the following years they mainly settled northwest of Philadelphia.
After their immigration, the Schwenkfeldians were at times in close contact with the Quakers , with whom they felt connected in the common emphasis on Christian spirituality. There was also a common commitment to the rights of native Indians . There were also connections to the Mennonites, but for example the common rejection of military service among the Schwenkfeldians was not justified in a fundamentally biblical manner, but rather a consequence of the experiences of the violent Counter-Reformation in Silesia. Efforts on the part of the Zinzendorfs to integrate the Schwenkfeldians into the Moravian Brethren failed because the Schwenkfeldians were not ready to give up their independent religious-ethnic identity. In the sense of the spiritualistic self-understanding, however, no fixed church structures were initially built. The Society of Schwenkfelders was not founded until 1782. In 1789 the first Schwenkfeldian parish hall was built. The Schwenkfelder Library was founded in 1885. In 1909 the actual Schwenkfelder Church was founded.
Within the Protestant church landscape in North America, the Congregational structured Schwenkfelder Church only plays a marginal role today. In 2009, it served five wards with approximately 2,500 members in southeastern Pennsylvania. The general conference of the Schwenkfelder Church is a member of the ecumenical Pennsylvania Council of Churches and (with the exception of the Central Schwenkfelder Church) an associated member of the United Church of Christ . The church also supports non-denominational mission societies.
The Schwenkfeldians who remained in Silesia were increasingly assimilated in the course of the 18th century, not least after the occupation of Silesia by the Prussian King Friedrich II and the appropriation by the Protestant Lutheran Church. In 1826 the last Silesian who openly confessed to the Schwenkfeldians died in Harpersdorf (Lower Silesia).
literature
- Horst Weigelt: From Silesia to America. The history of Schwenckfeldism (= new research on Silesian history. 14). Böhlau, Cologne et al. 2007, ISBN 978-3-412-07106-6 .
- Elisabeth Zimmermann: Schwenckfelder and Pietists in Greiffenberg and the surrounding area. A contribution to the history of piety in the Giant and Jizera Mountains from 1670 to 1730. Görlitz 1939 (= Association for Silesian Church History. Special Issue 7).