Teodors Grīnbergs
Teodors Grīnbergs (born April 2, 1870 in Dondangen , Nordkurland , † June 14, 1962 in Eßlingen am Neckar ) was a Latvian pastor and professor for Protestant theology . From 1932 he was Archbishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia . The emigrants from the (second) Latvian Socialist Soviet Republic found themselves in his Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia in exile with 100 parishes worldwide .
Life
Krišjānis Barons , a relative of his mother's, was often a guest on his parents' farm . After three years at village schools, Grīnbergs came to the school opened by Kārlis Mīlenbahs in Talsen . It shaped him for his whole life. At the German high school in Mitau , he led a Latvian reading group. On June 8, 1891, he graduated from high school in Kurland Governorate . On August 27 of the same year , he enrolled at the University of Dorpat for Protestant Theology . Since the 1840s, the faculty has combined Pietism and Orthodox Lutheranism. His teachers included Wilhelm Volck , Ferdinand Mühlau , Wilhelm Hoerschelmann , Nathanael Bonwetsch and Johann Hermann Kersten . While studying, he learned the French language and devoted himself to Latvian philology . In Dorpat he became a member of Lettonia , the oldest student association in the Riga Presidential Convention .
Pastor and teacher
Teodors Grīnbergs was ordained in 1899 and came to Luttringen for seven years . In 1907 he was called to Windau as the first Latvian pastor . He looked after 12,000 people and became known throughout Latvia in 27 years of office. Child and youth work was of particular interest. After he had campaigned against the Russian Revolution in 1905 , he had to hide with the Baptists in 1919 during the time of Rätelettland . At the school he taught Latvian language and religion without pay. At his instigation, a Latvian elementary and middle school was set up in Windau in 1918 , which later became a grammar school . From 1918 to 1932 he was director of the school.
Appointed 1st primary school inspector in the city and district of Windau, Grīnbergs was urged to give up teaching by the school authorities - despite massive protests from colleagues and students.
Archbishop and university professor
Since 1929 he has been an honorary theological doctor of the University of Latvia , and in February 1931 he qualified as a professor in practical theology . On October 1, 1932, he received an extraordinary position . Until the invasion of the Red Army and during the German occupation of Latvia , Grīnberg's professor was in Riga .
Known for his theological magazines, lectures and lectures, Grīnbergs was elected to the senior church council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia. When Carl Irbe was inaugurated as Bishop of Latvia (1922), Nathan Söderblom proposed the title of Archbishop . As a nuncio , Pius XI. In the same year a concordat was concluded with the Latvian government. When Irbe had resigned from his bishopric on November 10, 1931 because of the conflicts with the Holy See , the city of Riga and the university , the 8th Synod of Grīnberg elected on March 29, 1932 as chief shepherd . Now elected to this office with great unanimity, Grīnbergs said:
“In my nature it is more to serve than to rule; But when the church calls, I can't fail. I will try to work as much as I can. There must be sincerity, truth, and peace in our church. Everything must serve the best of the churches. Everything can succeed if we understand ourselves as workers in the Lord's vineyard and serve him with a pure and sincere heart. "
The Swedish bishop Erling Eidem refused the inauguration because Irbe and the bishop of the German parishes in Latvia Peter Harald Poelchau (1870–1945) had refused to enter the Riga Cathedral . In the ten years of his theological and academic dual office, Grīnbergs successfully mediated between the faculty and the church.
When the Red Army occupied Latvia in 1939/40, 15,000 men, women, children, old people and sick people were deported to Siberia in June 1941 . There were some pastors among them. If the Riga population had therefore greeted the Wehrmacht with joy, at least the believers were soon bitterly disappointed; because the Germans , supported by local collaborators, killed Jews , Gypsies and the mentally ill . When the Red Army was back in front of Riga in autumn 1944 and many Latvians fled to Germany or Sweden, the Grīnbergs wanted to stay in the country; but the National Socialists urged him to leave Riga first and then the country.
exile
In West Germany , Grīnbergs campaigned for the military governments of the British and American occupation zones for the release of Latvian soldiers. By telegraph he asked Gustav V not to comply with Josef Stalin's request for the soldiers interned there to be extradited :
“I ask Your Majesty, in the name of God and humanity, not to hand over the Latvian soldiers to the Bolsheviks. That means her certain death. They only defended their homeland. "
The Latvians were extradited.
In order to offer the Latvians who had fled to all parts of the world a church home, Grinbergs set up the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia in exile from Germany (since 1991: Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church abroad ), as its first archbishop he was his Death officiated. In 1947 he signed the founding charter and the constitution of the Lutheran World Federation in Lund .
He died after pneumonia at the age of 92. Ecclesiastical and secular representatives of Latvia from Germany and other countries as well as representatives of the Lutheran World Federation and the Evangelical Church in Germany attended the funeral service in the southern church in Esslingen am Neckar . Among them were Herbert Girgensohn and Württemberg Regional Bishop Erich Eichele .
“It is primarily his Latvian people in exile who are scattered all over the surface of the world that mourn him. He had become a father to him in a very unique way in the grave affliction that affected these people. That is what he was called everywhere; but in reality it was. He enjoyed an unprecedented level of trust; for he bore them all on his heart in their spiritual and earthly trouble. You could feel it in him that he stood praying for her before his God and that from there he also received the strength to stand up for her in the confusion of history. He was privileged to build an autonomous church for the members of his people in exile. It should offer these tested people security in the midst of a hostile world. His attitude was not determined by a nationalism that only accepts its own kind. In all his manner and effectiveness he was rather a man of balance and love. "
Honors
- D. theol. hc of the University of Latvia (1929)
- Member of the Executive Committee of the Lutheran World Federation (1947)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Robert Stupperich: Church in the East (1965)
- ↑ Ventspils
- ^ Habilitation thesis: The confirmation
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Grīnbergs, Teodors |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Grünberg, Theodor (German spelling) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Latvian Protestant theologian |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 2, 1870 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Dondangen , Livonia |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 14, 1962 |
| Place of death | Esslingen am Neckar |