Wesel Convention

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The Weseler Konvent was an assembly of leading church people from Dutch refugee communities. It took place in early November 1568 in the Hanseatic city of Wesel . The resolutions made there still shape the church order of the Reformed churches in the Netherlands and led to the introduction of presbyterial-synodal structures in the duchies of Jülich-Kleve-Berg and , in the 19th century, in all German regional churches .

History and occasion

The Dutch provinces, a densely populated and economically important territory, had opened up from the beginning of the Reformation of Luther and later Calvin . In 1567 the Duke of Alba became governor of the Netherlands on behalf of the Habsburg Philip II . He brutally suppressed Calvinism and the Dutch independence movement, thus triggering the Eighty Years War (1568–1648) , which ended with the independence of the United Netherlands .

In the course of the clashes between the Spanish Habsburgs and the Netherlands, many Dutch fled their homeland (probably more than 100,000). In particular from 1568 to 1572 there was a large wave of refugees. The refugees found acceptance in the Lower Rhine , in the Palatinate , in East Frisia and in England . At their respective asylum locations, they gathered in their own reformed refugee communities.

The aim of the Wesel Convention of 1568 was to give these refugee communities a uniform presbyterial structure and to network them with one another through a synodal superstructure. Wesel as the venue had hosted a large number of Dutch religious refugees, which was expressed in the honorary name " Vesalia hospitalis " (about hospitable Wesel ) that was later received .

Course and resolutions

At the beginning of November 1568, 43 leading figures from the Dutch exiles (mainly preachers and elders , but also important figures from the political opposition) met in Wesel to discuss church regulations for the Dutch congregations. Statements on the exact course of the meeting are not possible because there are no sources. The minutes of the meeting, dated November 3, 1568, have been preserved. The recommendations documented there for a church order relate on the one hand to the life of the individual parishes, on the other hand they describe the way they are networked through a two-tier system of synods .

The individual church

The life of the individual congregation is described in terms of four offices that are to be filled in the congregation: preacher, elder, deacon and teacher or “prophet”. The preacher has the task of preaching. The elders, along with the minister, lead the church. To this end, they together form the consistory ( presbytery ). The deacon is responsible for caring for the poor. The teacher or “prophet” - this office is not clearly defined in the resolutions - has the task of theological further education of the community. This office order of the Wesel Convention takes four offices doctrine on Calvin.

The synodal superstructure

A two-stage synodal “superstructure” is decided to link the communities. At the local level, the individual parishes send delegates to the Classical Synod (e.g. to the Classical Synod Wesel, which covers the area of ​​the then Duchy of Kleve ). For their part, the Classical Synods send members to the general synod ("Provincial Synod") that is soon to be formed. With this church structure, the Wesel Convention takes up the discipline ecclésiastique of the French Huguenot church from 1559.

effect

In the Dutch municipalities

The Wesel resolutions were implemented directly in the Dutch refugee communities. Four classes were formed: Palatinate, Jülich , Ostfriesland and Wesel. In 1571 a first general synod in Emden confirmed the decisions of Wesel in all essential points and transformed them into a church order. However, the position of teacher or "prophet", which was not clearly profiled in Wesel, is no longer mentioned, and the election of preachers and elders by collegial electoral bodies in several neighboring communities is also given up in favor of direct election by the individual community.

After many refugees returned to the Netherlands, the general synod was able to meet for the first time in the Netherlands, in Dordrecht , in 1578 .

The church organization established in Wesel was thus implemented at all three levels (parish, classe, general synod). This presbyterial-synodal church structure shapes the Reformed churches in the Netherlands to this day.

In the German church system

The Wesel Convention was a gathering of Dutch church leaders. Nevertheless, his resolutions and their implementation in the Dutch refugee communities have had a significant impact on the German communities in Jülich-Kleve-Berg-Mark, initially especially on the Reformation communities on the Lower Rhine: The charisma of the presbyterial-synodal church order was so strong that Several German communities joined it within a few years. They gave themselves presbyteries (consistories) as governing bodies and joined the Dutch class at Wesel. With that they became part of the Dutch Reformed church system.

In 1610 the German congregations then constituted their own general synod in Duisburg , thus breaking away from the Dutch church organization. However, they retained the structure decided on at the Wesel Convention or in Emden. In 1653 a synod in Kleve confirmed the church order based on the Wesel model. Even if it was only partially possible to obtain state recognition for this church order in the following years, it was always used unofficially. After the Congress of Vienna she was finally able to negotiate tough negotiations with the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III. officially enforced for the Rhine Province and the Province of Westphalia ( Rheinisch-Westfälische Kirchenordnung von 1835).

In the 19th century, many of the Protestant regional churches gave themselves church orders based on the model of the Rhenish-Westphalian church order. The presbyterial-synodal system finally gained acceptance after the elimination of the sovereign church regiment (1918), so that today the parishes in all regional churches are led by presbyteries (church councils, church councils) and all regional churches (partially supplemented by episcopal leadership structures) via a multi-level synodal Have superstructure.

Thus, the resolutions of the Wesel Convention of 1568 not only shaped the Dutch Reformed church system, but also the member churches of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) , most enduringly the Evangelical Church of Westphalia and the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland , on their territory the Weseler Convention met, as well as the Evangelical Reformed Church and the Lippe Regional Church .

To the state of research

In 1982 Jan Pieter van Dooren initiated a discussion as to whether the Wesel Convention really took place in Wesel and really in 1568. Van Dooren postulated that the convention took place in Antwerp at the end of 1566 or the beginning of 1567. As a precautionary measure, the protocol recorded a wrong place and time. While van Dooren's thesis was already seriously questioned by Walter Stempel's reply and modified by Owe Boersma, Herbert Kipp's digression (pages 411–417) could again identify the place (Wesel) and time (November 1568) mentioned in the protocol seem plausible.

Jesse A. Spohnholz presented the latest work on the Weseler Konvent in 2004. Spohnholz makes it plausible that the initiative and organization of the Wesel Convention were in the hands of the Consistory of the Dutch refugee community in Wesel.

literature

Resolutions of the Wesel Convention

  • JF Gerhard Goeters (Hrsg.): The resolutions of the Weseler Konvent of 1568 (= series of publications of the Association for Rhenish Church History 30 ). Press association of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland, Düsseldorf 1968.

Secondary literature

  • Owe Boersma: Vluchtig voorbeeld. De nederlandse, franse en italiaanse vluchtelingenkerken in Londen, 1568–1585 . Theolog. Akad., Diss. Kampen 1994; therein: Het Convent van Wezel: een raadsel opgelost ?, pp. 197–206.
  • Jan Pieter van Dooren: The Weseler Konvent 1568. New research results . In: Monthly Issues for Evangelical Church History in the Rhineland 31 (1982), pp. 41–55.
  • Herbert Frost: The Convent of Wesel in 1568 and its influence on the emergence of a German Protestant church constitution . In: Ders .: Selected writings on constitutional and church law , ed. v. Manfred Baldus u. a. (= Jus Ecclesiasticum 65 ) Tübingen 2001, pp. 65-115. ISBN 3-16-147396-5 .
  • Johann F. Gerhard Goeters : The Wesel Convention of Dutch Refugees from November 3, 1568 . In: Weseler Konvent 1568–1968: An anniversary publication (= series of publications by the Association for Rhenish Church History 29 ). Press Association of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland, Düsseldorf 1968, pp. 88–114.
  • Herbert Kipp: "First strive for the kingdom of God". Rural Reformation and Council confessionalization in Wesel (1520–1600) (= writings of the Heresbach Foundation Kalkar 12 ). Bielefeld 2004.
  • Wilhelm Maurer : On the prehistory of the Rhenish-Westphalian church order of 1835 . In: Gerhard Müller , Gottfried Seebaß (Hrsg.): The Church and its law: Collected essays on Protestant church law (= Jus Ecclesiasticum 23 ). Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 1976, pp. 279-309. ISBN 3-16-637702-6 .
  • Ulrich Scheuner : The decisions of the Weseler Konvent in their effect on the development of the church order in Rhineland-Westphalia . In: Weseler Konvent 1568-1968: An anniversary publication (= series of publications by the Association for Rhenish Church History 29 ). Press Association of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland, Düsseldorf 1968, pp. 163–191.
  • Jesse A. Spohnholz: Strangers And Neighbors. The Tactics of Toleration in the Dutch Exile Community of Wesel, 1550-1590 . Dissertation, Iowa 2004.
  • Walter Stempel: Some inquiries about “The Weseler Konvent 1568, New Research Results” . In: Monthly Issues for Evangelical Church History in the Rhineland 31 (1982), pp. 338-340.