Valgmenighed

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Valgmenighed ( Danish ) denotes an electoral parish of the Danish People's Church . A group of church members can, under certain conditions, form their own congregation, detached from the geographically defined districts (Danish Sogn ). Electoral parishes are based on the same Lutheran teaching as the popular church. There are currently around 40 electoral municipalities in Denmark , and you can choose to accept new members yourself.

The electoral parish is like a local parish under the supervision of the provost and bishop . So it is not to be confused with a Free Congregation (Danish: Frimenighed ). Free congregations stand outside the national church, but profess the same Lutheran foundations . This in turn distinguishes free congregations from free churches .

requirements

Their formation requires the approval of the church ministry . At least 50 church members are required for an application. Applicants must have the right to vote for the municipal council and personally sign the application. A candidate qualified as a pastor of the national church must declare his readiness to lead the electoral congregation. The electoral congregation is responsible for all costs, including the pastor's wages ; In return, the members of an electoral parish are exempt from church tax. The initiators must have their own church or have contractually secured the (shared) use of a church.

history

The formation of electoral parishes within the Volkskirche was suggested by Nikolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig in the early 1830s . In 1855, the parliament lifted the binding on the parish of the place of residence in a first law (Parochialzwang, Danish sognebånd ). On May 15, 1868, the formation of electoral communities was finally made possible. This was intended to keep members who were dissatisfied with the theological or (church) political orientation of the local pastor in the national church. Instead of resigning and starting a free church, they should be able to choose a pastor themselves.

The background was the dismissal of the Grundtvigian Vilhelm Birkedal as pastor of Ryslinge Sogn in 1865. In his function as a member of the Danish Imperial Council, he had sharply attacked the Bluhme government . After he had asked King Christian IX in an intercessory prayer a year earlier . was accused of being unanimous, he was promoted from office. However, Birkedal argued that he was only dismissed as a civil servant, not as a pastor, and continued his priestly work. His partisans used the scandal to fight for the easing of the church constitution. In order to contain these demands and to secure Birkedal's vote in parliament, the government allowed municipalities to be spun off in 1868. For more than a century, only Grundtvigian -minded groups used the law for themselves.

At the end of the 20th century, the charismatic movement gained some supporters in Denmark. In 1990 the first electoral parish in Århus was founded on this basis.

The Inner Mission (IM) held fast to its institutional anchoring in the people's church. Nevertheless, in 1991 a first constituency was established in Fjellerup , Djursland , also under the influence of the events in nearby Århus. In 2009, IM members formed the Aarhus Bykirke electoral parish to protest against a pastor election in St. Luke's Congregation .

In 2014 the electoral congregation “Church of Love” was admitted under Pastor Massoud Fouroozandeh . Fouroozandeh is the first pastor of the People's Church to convert from Islam .

ELUVA

In 2004 ELUVA ("Foreningen af ​​Evangelisk-Lutherske Valgmenigheder i Danmark"; German: "Association of Evangelical Lutheran Electoral Communities in Denmark") was founded to promote community between the electoral communities, to support the formation of new electoral communities and to promote common interests to represent the national church, associations and networks.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Nikolaj Christensen: Tidslinje - Indre Missions forhold til folkekirke og frimenigheder kristendom.dk, February 9, 2011, accessed on August 10, 2015.
  2. ↑ Anne Katrine Gottfred Jensen: Folkekirken får sin første migrant-valgmenighed Kristeligt Dagblad, October 6, 2014, accessed on August 10, 2015.

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