Waiting

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The Limbo was a special and 1953 civil service position in Germany. In Protestant church law , the waiting status and the associated waiting allowance continues to this day for church officials and pastors .

State law

In the waiting status, which was introduced in Prussia as early as 1852 by the Disciplinary Act, § 87 No. 2, and was regulated in the German Reich in 1873 by the Reichsbeamtengesetz, § 24, civil servants could be transferred for a period of time or for life if their agency was dissolved, merged with another or substantially changed in structure. Officials could only be put on hold for three months after such a change.

The officer continued to be a civil servant, his superior was his last superior in service, if the highest service authority or in its absence - for example if it was dissolved itself - the interior minister had not appointed another.

The officer received his official salary for three more months after entering the waiting position.

The waiting period ended with the transfer of a new office or with the termination of the civil service.

The officials in waiting were entitled to use their official title with the addition “in waiting (iW)” or, since the 1930s, with the addition “ for service use (zD)”.

The German Civil Service Act of 1937 declared the following groups of civil servants to be put on hold at any time:

“The state law has decided, without fundamentally changing the matter, for the term ' temporary retirement ' (today § 20 Civil Service Framework Law; §§ 36, 36a Federal Civil Service Law), the church law is" - like the law of some countries - "with waiting remained."

Church law

In the area of ​​the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) as well as in its regional churches and church federations such as the United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany (VELKD) and the Union of Evangelical Churches (UEK) there is the legal status of waiting in the currently valid Parish Service Act of the EKD is intended for all regional churches, and is "a piece of traditional Protestant church law". However, the EKD Parish Service Act includes the possibility for regional churches to waive the waiting status entirely.

You can currently be put on hold in the following cases:

  • As a result of a “lasting disruption in the perception of the service”.
  • Disciplinary proceedings were decided to the disadvantage of a pastor holder.
  • A transfer to another position, for example due to the loss of a pastor's position, is not possible.
  • After a limited appointment period, the pastor cannot successfully apply for a new pastor's position within a period of more than one year. Limited appointment times may apply. a. for military chaplaincy, foreign services, superintendents or regional church parish offices.
  • If a pastor does not immediately find a job after a leave of absence, an assignment, parental leave, a political mandate, the end of a supervisory office, the termination of a job or a reorganization.

"The removal from office while being put on hold is a church peculiarity that has no equivalent in state disciplinary law."

In the last ten years, there has been an increasing number of people being put on hold because pastorships have been canceled in the EKD area, which has led to the result that there are no longer pastorships for all pastors who are in service for life. This turned the waiting status into a means of controlling church personnel management.

The waiting period is associated with a reduction in earnings to usually 75 percent of the pensionable earnings; A further reduction is made for less than 25 years of service. Pastor i. W. are retired if they request this, if they do not find a regular pastor's position within three years or if “trouble-free service cannot be expected” in the future.

There are analogous regulations for church officials. In addition, at the EKD level, “the president, the heads of the main departments of the church office as well as the authorized representative of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany in the Federal Republic of Germany and the European Union [...] can be put on hold at any time . They are to be put on hold at their request if, according to the Council, there are fundamental differences of opinion between them and the Council, which can no longer be expected to work together successfully. "

Since the waiting status has so far only been a step in the disciplinary procedure and it is now operated as an instrument of human resource management, the pastor who is on hold through no fault of his own because there is no pastor's position for him despite the assurance of a lifelong employment relationship is suspected of being he did something wrong. This means that transfers and waiting periods have a “de facto discriminatory effect”. That is why there are legal opinions and publications on the waiting status that ultimately declare the waiting status to be illegal or at least consider it very problematic. So far it has been retained in the current Parish Service Act.

In the regional churches there is a controversial discussion about the introduction of waiting in the Protestant church, among other things. a. because this was promoted at the time of National Socialism - in principle there were already corresponding regulations - and "due to a lack of prosperous work, the transfer [apparently also] was used ... [was] to get pastors of Jewish descent and otherwise politically unpleasant officials out of office". In the transfer order that Paul Schneider was to receive, Schneider's "anti-state behavior", the "lack of a positive and unconditional affirmation of the current state" and the associated lack of prospect of release from the concentration camp are cited as reasons for being put on hold.

Among other things, Friedrich Langensiepen was put on hold, with Paul Schneider it was intended, but due to his death it did not come to that. In Schneider's case, the hearing prescribed by church law should not be held by the consistory , but by the Gestapo . The discussion is also linked to the history of the Church of German Christians (DC) and the Confessing Church.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter von Tiling: Again: The Waiting Stand , Section 1.
  2. ↑ Peter von Tiling: Again: The waiting position , note 2.
  3. ↑ Peter von Tiling: Again: The Waiting Stand , Section 4.
  4. ↑ Evangelical Church in Germany: Disciplinary Law  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , § 15, paragraph 5. In addition: Evangelical Church in Germany: Reasons for the disciplinary law of the EKD  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , on Section 15 Removal from office while being put on hold, Paragraph 5@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.kirchenrecht-ekd.de  @1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.kirchenrecht-ekd.de  
  5. ^ Evangelical Church in Germany: Explanation of the Parish Service Act of November 10, 2010 , Section II.A
  6. ↑ Evangelical Church in Germany: Disciplinary Law of the Evangelical Church in Germany (DG.EKD)  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , § 15; Version dated November 9, 2011.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.kirchenrecht-ekd.de  
  7. ^ Evangelical Church in Germany: Parish Service Act , § 83, Paragraph 2; Version dated July 4, 2011.
  8. ^ Evangelical Church in Germany: Parish Service Act , § 79, Paragraph 2; Version dated July 4, 2011.
  9. ↑ Evangelical Church in Germany: Parish Service Act of the EKD , § 76, paragraph 3
  10. ^ Evangelical Church in Germany: Parish Service Act of the EKD , § 78, paragraph 5
  11. ^ Evangelical Church in Germany: Parish Service Act of the EKD , § 54, Paragraph 2
  12. ↑ Evangelical Church in Germany: Parish Service Act of the EKD , § 35, paragraph 3
  13. ^ Evangelical Church in Germany: Parish Service Act of the EKD , § 79, Paragraph 2, Number 2
  14. ^ Evangelical Church in Germany: Parish Service Act of the EKD , § 79, Paragraph 2, Number 3
  15. ↑ Evangelical Church in Germany: Justification for the disciplinary law of the EKD of October 28, 2009  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ; to § 15, paragraph 1@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.kirchenrecht-ekd.de  
  16. ↑ Union of Evangelical Churches: Church law on the supply of pastors, church officials of the Union of Evangelical Churches in the Evangelical Church in Germany ( Memento of the original from June 30, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF); in the version dated March 1, 2013; § 7. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kirchenrecht-uek.de
  17. ↑ Evangelical Church in Germany: Parish Service Act of the EKD , § 92, paragraph 1
  18. ↑ Evangelical Church in Germany: Parish Service Act of the EKD , § 92, paragraph 2
  19. ↑ Evangelical Church in Germany: Parish Service Act of the EKD , § 92, paragraph 3
  20. ↑ Evangelical Church in Germany: Church Officials Act  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , §§ 60–65; Version dated October 30, 2012.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.kirchenrecht-ekd.de  
  21. ↑ Evangelical Church in Germany: Implementation Act for the Church Officials Act , § 4
  22. ↑ Hans-Eberhard Dietrich: Theological and legal reasons against waiting , part 1, section 1.2.
  23. ↑ Peter von Tiling: Again: The Waiting , Section 6.
  24. ↑ Hans-Eberhard Dietrich: Theological and legal reasons against waiting , paragraphs 3.2 - 3.4 and 5.2 . The footnotes can be found at the end of part 2 of the essay.
  25. ↑ Peter von Tiling: Again: The waiting status : In the Bavarian church this was regulated, for example, in the church law on the administrative proceedings against clergy of September 6, 1927.
  26. ↑ Peter von Tiling: Again: The waiting position , section 3.
  27. ↑ Quoted from: Albrecht Aichelin: Paul Schneider. A radical testimony of faith against the tyranny of National Socialism (=  Heidelberg studies on resistance, persecution of the Jews and church struggle in the Third Reich. Vol. 6). Kaiser, Gütersloh 1994, ISBN 3-579-01864-7 , p. 276.
  28. ^ Announced by the Rhenish Consistory in a letter dated June 26, 1939; on March 1, 1940, he was put on hold with effect from April 1, 1940. So: Günther van Norden: Friedrich Langensiepen: a life in Germany between rectory and prison . Kreuz-Verlag, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-7831-2690-8 , p. 240, 265.
    Simone Rauthe: “Sharp opponents”. The disciplining of church employees by the Evangelical Consistory of the Rhine Province and its finance department from 1933 to 1945 (=  series of publications of the Association for Rhenish Church History. Vol. 162). Habelt, Bonn 2003, ISBN 3-7749-3215-8 , p. 91.
  29. ↑ Simone Rauthe: "Sharp opponents". The disciplining of church employees by the Evangelical Consistory of the Rhine Province and its finance department from 1933 to 1945 (=  series of publications of the Association for Rhenish Church History. Vol. 162). Habelt, Bonn 2003, ISBN 3-7749-3215-8 , p. 89 f.
  30. ^ Albrecht Aichelin: Paul Schneider. A radical testimony of faith against the tyranny of National Socialism (=  Heidelberg studies on resistance, persecution of the Jews and church struggle in the Third Reich. Vol. 6). Kaiser, Gütersloh 1994, ISBN 3-579-01864-7 , p. 273.