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German Protestant Church Confederation

October 19, 2023

The German Protestant Church Confederation (German: Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchenbund, abbreviated DEK) was a formal federation of 28 regional Protestant churches (Landeskirchen) of Lutheran, Reformed or United Protestant administration or confession. It existed during the Weimar Republic from 1922 until replaced by the German Evangelical Church in 1933.[1] It was a predecessor body to the Protestant Church in Germany.

History Edit

Besides the smaller Protestant denominations of the Mennonites, Baptists and Methodists, which were organised crossing state borders along denominational lines, there were 29 (later 28) church bodies organised according to the territorial borders of the German states or the Prussian provinces.[2] Those Protestant church bodies, covering the territory of former monarchies with a ruling Protestant dynasty, had been state churches until 1918, with the exception of the Protestant church bodies in territories annexed by Prussia in 1866. Others had been no less territorially defined Protestant minority church bodies within Catholic monarchies, where before 1918 the Roman Catholic Church played the role of state church. Starting in 1852 the German Evangelical Church Conference (aka Eisenach Conference; Deutsche Evangelische Kirchenkonferenz, or Eisenacher Konferenz) became a steady coordinating organisation, which more and more state churches joined. Its executive body was the German Evangelical Church Committee (Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchenausschuss; DEKA).

Under the Weimar Constitution, there would be no state churches any longer, but the churches remained public corporations and retained their subsidies from government.[3] The theological faculties in the universities continued, as did religious instruction in the schools, however, allowing the parents to opt out for their children. The rights formerly held by the monarchs in the German Empire simply devolved to church councils instead, and the high-ranking church administrators —who had been civil servants in the Empire —simply became church officials instead. Chairpersons elected by synods were introduced into the governing structures of the churches.

After the system of state churches had ended with the abolition of the monarchies in the German states, the merger of the Protestant church bodies within Germany became a viable option. A merger of the Protestant regional churches was permanently under discussion, but never materialised due to strong regional self-confidence and traditions as well as the denominational fragmentation into Lutheran, Calvinist and united churches. The German Evangelical Church Confederation was prepared for with conferences in Cassel in 1919, in Dresden 1919 and Stuttgart in 1921.[4] The then 29 territorially defined German Protestant church bodies formed Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchenbund following the model of Schweizerischer Evangelischer Kirchenbund established by the Swiss Landeskirchen in 1920. The German Evangelical Church Conference was then dissolved. Save for the organisational matters under the jurisdiction of the Confederation, the regional churches remained independent in all other matters, including especially theology, since they comprised churches of different confessional compositions. This federal system allowed for a great deal of regional autonomy in the governance of German Protestantism, as it allowed for a confederated church parliament that served as a forum for discussion and that endeavoured to resolve theological and organisational conflicts.

The Confederation was reorganised when Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, in order to become the core of a future united Protestant church in Germany. However, when Nazi-submissive proponents of the German Christians usurped that project, the new united German Evangelical Church turned out to be a heretical, rather un-Protestant top-down hierarchical institution. Lacking any synodal and presbyterial democracy and with the new church's attitude to reserve baptism and thus church membership to so-called Aryans only, the German Christians betrayed the universality of the baptism,[citation needed] which is why many former supporters of a united Protestant church then refused their collaboration (see Confessing Church). After the end of the Nazi reign the surviving regional Protestant church bodies in Germany founded a new umbrella in August 1945, the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD).

Governance Edit

The Confederation was governed and administered by a 36-member Executive Committee (Kirchenausschuss), which was responsible for ongoing governance between the annual conventions of the Church General Assembly (Kirchentag). This assembly was composed of elected representatives of the various regional churches.

Member churches Edit

The following independent regional Protestant church bodies were members in the German Evangelical Church Confederation:

  • Evangelical State Church of Anhalt (German: Evangelische Landeskirche Anhalts), a church body united by confession with 315,000 parishioners in 1922[5]
  • United Evangelical Protestant State Church of Baden (German: Vereinigte Evangelisch-protestantische Landeskirche Badens), united by confession with 821,000 parishioners in 1922[5]
  • Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria right of the river Rhine (German: Evangelisch-lutherische Kirche in Bayern rechts des Rheins), Lutheran with 1,575,000 parishioners in 1925[6]
  • Evangelical Church of the Region of Birkenfeld (German: Evangelische Kirche des Landesteils Birkenfeld), united by confession with 40,000 parishioners in 1922[5]
  • Bremian Evangelical Church (German: Bremische Evangelische Kirche), a church body united in administration comprising mostly Reformed, some Lutheran and few united congregations with by 260,000 parishioners in 1922[5]
  • Brunswickian Evangelical Lutheran State Church (German: Braunschweigische evangelisch-lutherische Landeskirche), Lutheran with 464,000 parishioners in 1922[5]
  • Evangelical State Church of Frankfurt upon Main (German: Evangelische Landeskirche Frankfurt am Main), a church body united in administration comprising Lutheran, some United and few Reformed congregations with by 220,000 parishioners in 1922[5]
  • Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Hamburgian State (German: Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche im Hamburgischen Staate), a Lutheran church body with 914,000 parishioners in 1922[5]
  • Evangelical Lutheran State Church of Hanover (German: Evangelisch-lutherische Landeskirche Hannovers), Lutheran with 2,414,000 parishioners in 1922[6]
  • Evangelical Reformed State Church of the Province of Hanover (German: Evangelisch-reformierte Landeskirche der Provinz Hannover), Reformed with 157,000 parishioners in 1922[5]
  • Evangelical Church in Hesse (Cassel, within Prussia; German: Evangelische Kirche in Hessen), a church body united in administration comprising Lutheran, some Reformed and United congregations with 822,000 parishioners in 1922[5]
  • Evangelical State Church in Hesse (Darmstadt; People's State of Hesse; German: Evangelische Landeskirche in Hessen), a church body united in administration comprising mostly Lutheran, some Reformed and United congregations with 848,000 parishioners in 1922[5]
  • Lippe State Church (German: Lippische Landeskirche), a Reformed church body, however also comprising 4 Lutheran congregations with 143,000 parishioners in 1922[5]
  • Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Lübeckian State (German: Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche im Lübeckischen Staate), Lutheran with 111,000 parishioners in 1922[5]
  • Evangelical Lutheran State Church of the Oldenburgian Region of Lübeck (German: Evangelisch-Lutherische Landeskirche des oldenburgischen Landesteils Lübeck), Lutheran
  • Lutheran Church in Upper Lusatia (German: Lutherische Kirche in der Oberlausitz). In 1926 the Upper Lusatian Lutheran church body merged in the Saxon Lutheran state church.
  • Evangelical Lutheran Church of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (German: Evangelisch-lutherische Kirche von Mecklenburg-Schwerin), Lutheran with 614,000 parishioners in 1922[5]
  • Mecklenburg-Strelitz State Church (German: Mecklenburg-Strelitzer Landeskirche), Lutheran with 101,000 parishioners in 1922[5]
  • Evangelical State Church in Nassau (German: Evangelische Landeskirche in Nassau), a church body united in administration comprising mostly United and few Lutheran congregations
  • Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Region of Oldenburg (German: Evangelisch-lutherische Kirche des Landesteils Oldenburg), a Lutheran church body, however, comprising 1 Reformed congregation with 291,000 parishioners in 1922[5]
  • United Protestant Evangelical Christian Church of the Palatinate (Palatine State Church) (German: Vereinigte protestantisch-evangelisch-christliche Kirche der Pfalz (Pfälzische Landeskirche)), united by confession with 506,000 parishioners in 1922[5]
  • Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union (German: Evangelische Kirche der altpreußischen Union; ApU, EKapU), a church body united in administration comprising mostly Lutheran, some Reformed and united congregations with 18,000,000 parishioners in 1922[5]
  • Evangelical Lutheran Church in Reuss Elder Line (German: Evangelisch-lutherische Kirche in Reuß ältere Linie), Lutheran with 70,000 parishioners in 1922[5]
  • Evangelical Lutheran State Church of the Free State of Saxony(German: Evangelisch-lutherische Landeskirche des Freistaats Sachsen), Lutheran with 4,509,000 parishioners in 1922[6]
  • Evangelical Lutheran State Church of Schaumburg-Lippe (German: Evangelisch-lutherische Landeskirche von Schaumburg-Lippe), Lutheran with 44,000 parishioners in 1922[5]
  • Evangelical Lutheran Church of Schleswig-Holstein (German: Evangelisch-Lutherische Landeskirche Schleswig-Holsteins), Lutheran with 1,361,000 parishioners in 1922[6]
  • Thuringian Evangelical Church (German: Thüringer evangelische Kirche), Lutheran with 1,384,000 parishioners in 1922[5]
  • United Evangelical State Church of Waldeck and Pyrmont (German: Vereinigte evangelische Landeskirche von Waldeck und Pyrmont), a church body united in administration comprising mostly Lutheran and few Reformed congregations with 65,000 parishioners in 1922[5]
  • Evangelical State Church in Württemberg (German: Evangelische Landeskirche in Württemberg), Lutheran, though not mentioned in the official name with 1,668,000 parishioners in 1922[6]

Associated members Edit

  • Evangelical Church of Augsburg Confession and Helvetic Confession in Austria (German: Evangelische Kirche Augsburgischen and Helvetischen Bekenntnisses in Österreich, as of 1926)
  • Synod of Rio Grande in Brazil (Riograndenser Synode/Sínodo Rio-Grandense; renamed as Igreja Evangélica de Confissão Luterana no Brasil as of 1968)
  • Province of Germany of the Unitas Fratrum (Moravian Church) (German: Evangelische Brüderunität in Deutschland)

References Edit

  1. ^ Brethren in adversity: Bishop George Bell, the Church of England p7 George Kennedy Allen Bell, Andrew Chandler - 1997 "In May 1922 a new German Evangelical Church Confederation, the Deutsche Evangelische Kirchenbund, was established with a Kirchentag, or assembly, of 210 representatives, a Kirchenbundesrat, or Church Confederation Council, ..."
  2. ^ The correlation between political state (German: Land) and church region in the Weimar period was not necessarily exact, because regional churches mostly did not comply to territorial changes in the 19th century.
  3. ^ The government in effect collected church fees from those taxpayers enlisted as parishioners and distributed these funds to the churches.
  4. ^ Siegfried Hermle Handbuch der Deutschen Evangelischen Kirchen 1918 bis 1949 p15 - 2010 "Die Gründung des Kirchenbundes wurde vorbereitet durch eine Vorkonferenz in Kassel 1919 und die Deutschen Evangelischen Kirchentage in Dresden 1919 und Stuttgart 1921."
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Sebastian Müller-Rolli in collaboration with Reiner Anselm, Evangelische Schulpolitik in Deutschland 1918–1958: Dokumente und Darstellung, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999, (=Eine Veröffentlichung des Comenius-Instituts Münster), p. 30. ISBN 3-525-61362-8.
  6. ^ a b c d e Sebastian Müller-Rolli in collaboration with Reiner Anselm, Evangelische Schulpolitik in Deutschland 1918–1958: Dokumente und Darstellung, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999, (=Eine Veröffentlichung des Comenius-Instituts Münster), p. 29. ISBN 3-525-61362-8.

October 19, 2023
german, protestant, church, confederation, german, deutscher, evangelischer, kirchenbund, abbreviated, formal, federation, regional, protestant, churches, landeskirchen, lutheran, reformed, united, protestant, administration, confession, existed, during, weima. The German Protestant Church Confederation German Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchenbund abbreviated DEK was a formal federation of 28 regional Protestant churches Landeskirchen of Lutheran Reformed or United Protestant administration or confession It existed during the Weimar Republic from 1922 until replaced by the German Evangelical Church in 1933 1 It was a predecessor body to the Protestant Church in Germany Contents 1 History 2 Governance 3 Member churches 3 1 Associated members 4 ReferencesHistory EditBesides the smaller Protestant denominations of the Mennonites Baptists and Methodists which were organised crossing state borders along denominational lines there were 29 later 28 church bodies organised according to the territorial borders of the German states or the Prussian provinces 2 Those Protestant church bodies covering the territory of former monarchies with a ruling Protestant dynasty had been state churches until 1918 with the exception of the Protestant church bodies in territories annexed by Prussia in 1866 Others had been no less territorially defined Protestant minority church bodies within Catholic monarchies where before 1918 the Roman Catholic Church played the role of state church Starting in 1852 the German Evangelical Church Conference aka Eisenach Conference Deutsche Evangelische Kirchenkonferenz or Eisenacher Konferenz became a steady coordinating organisation which more and more state churches joined Its executive body was the German Evangelical Church Committee Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchenausschuss DEKA Under the Weimar Constitution there would be no state churches any longer but the churches remained public corporations and retained their subsidies from government 3 The theological faculties in the universities continued as did religious instruction in the schools however allowing the parents to opt out for their children The rights formerly held by the monarchs in the German Empire simply devolved to church councils instead and the high ranking church administrators who had been civil servants in the Empire simply became church officials instead Chairpersons elected by synods were introduced into the governing structures of the churches After the system of state churches had ended with the abolition of the monarchies in the German states the merger of the Protestant church bodies within Germany became a viable option A merger of the Protestant regional churches was permanently under discussion but never materialised due to strong regional self confidence and traditions as well as the denominational fragmentation into Lutheran Calvinist and united churches The German Evangelical Church Confederation was prepared for with conferences in Cassel in 1919 in Dresden 1919 and Stuttgart in 1921 4 The then 29 territorially defined German Protestant church bodies formed Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchenbund following the model of Schweizerischer Evangelischer Kirchenbund established by the Swiss Landeskirchen in 1920 The German Evangelical Church Conference was then dissolved Save for the organisational matters under the jurisdiction of the Confederation the regional churches remained independent in all other matters including especially theology since they comprised churches of different confessional compositions This federal system allowed for a great deal of regional autonomy in the governance of German Protestantism as it allowed for a confederated church parliament that served as a forum for discussion and that endeavoured to resolve theological and organisational conflicts The Confederation was reorganised when Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933 in order to become the core of a future united Protestant church in Germany However when Nazi submissive proponents of the German Christians usurped that project the new united German Evangelical Church turned out to be a heretical rather un Protestant top down hierarchical institution Lacking any synodal and presbyterial democracy and with the new church s attitude to reserve baptism and thus church membership to so called Aryans only the German Christians betrayed the universality of the baptism citation needed which is why many former supporters of a united Protestant church then refused their collaboration see Confessing Church After the end of the Nazi reign the surviving regional Protestant church bodies in Germany founded a new umbrella in August 1945 the Evangelical Church in Germany EKD Governance EditThe Confederation was governed and administered by a 36 member Executive Committee Kirchenausschuss which was responsible for ongoing governance between the annual conventions of the Church General Assembly Kirchentag This assembly was composed of elected representatives of the various regional churches Member churches EditThe following independent regional Protestant church bodies were members in the German Evangelical Church Confederation Evangelical State Church of Anhalt German Evangelische Landeskirche Anhalts a church body united by confession with 315 000 parishioners in 1922 5 United Evangelical Protestant State Church of Baden German Vereinigte Evangelisch protestantische Landeskirche Badens united by confession with 821 000 parishioners in 1922 5 Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria right of the river Rhine German Evangelisch lutherische Kirche in Bayern rechts des Rheins Lutheran with 1 575 000 parishioners in 1925 6 Evangelical Church of the Region of Birkenfeld German Evangelische Kirche des Landesteils Birkenfeld united by confession with 40 000 parishioners in 1922 5 Bremian Evangelical Church German Bremische Evangelische Kirche a church body united in administration comprising mostly Reformed some Lutheran and few united congregations with by 260 000 parishioners in 1922 5 Brunswickian Evangelical Lutheran State Church German Braunschweigische evangelisch lutherische Landeskirche Lutheran with 464 000 parishioners in 1922 5 Evangelical State Church of Frankfurt upon Main German Evangelische Landeskirche Frankfurt am Main a church body united in administration comprising Lutheran some United and few Reformed congregations with by 220 000 parishioners in 1922 5 Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Hamburgian State German Evangelisch Lutherische Kirche im Hamburgischen Staate a Lutheran church body with 914 000 parishioners in 1922 5 Evangelical Lutheran State Church of Hanover German Evangelisch lutherische Landeskirche Hannovers Lutheran with 2 414 000 parishioners in 1922 6 Evangelical Reformed State Church of the Province of Hanover German Evangelisch reformierte Landeskirche der Provinz Hannover Reformed with 157 000 parishioners in 1922 5 Evangelical Church in Hesse Cassel within Prussia German Evangelische Kirche in Hessen a church body united in administration comprising Lutheran some Reformed and United congregations with 822 000 parishioners in 1922 5 Evangelical State Church in Hesse Darmstadt People s State of Hesse German Evangelische Landeskirche in Hessen a church body united in administration comprising mostly Lutheran some Reformed and United congregations with 848 000 parishioners in 1922 5 Lippe State Church German Lippische Landeskirche a Reformed church body however also comprising 4 Lutheran congregations with 143 000 parishioners in 1922 5 Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Lubeckian State German Evangelisch Lutherische Kirche im Lubeckischen Staate Lutheran with 111 000 parishioners in 1922 5 Evangelical Lutheran State Church of the Oldenburgian Region of Lubeck German Evangelisch Lutherische Landeskirche des oldenburgischen Landesteils Lubeck Lutheran Lutheran Church in Upper Lusatia German Lutherische Kirche in der Oberlausitz In 1926 the Upper Lusatian Lutheran church body merged in the Saxon Lutheran state church Evangelical Lutheran Church of Mecklenburg Schwerin German Evangelisch lutherische Kirche von Mecklenburg Schwerin Lutheran with 614 000 parishioners in 1922 5 Mecklenburg Strelitz State Church German Mecklenburg Strelitzer Landeskirche Lutheran with 101 000 parishioners in 1922 5 Evangelical State Church in Nassau German Evangelische Landeskirche in Nassau a church body united in administration comprising mostly United and few Lutheran congregations Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Region of Oldenburg German Evangelisch lutherische Kirche des Landesteils Oldenburg a Lutheran church body however comprising 1 Reformed congregation with 291 000 parishioners in 1922 5 United Protestant Evangelical Christian Church of the Palatinate Palatine State Church German Vereinigte protestantisch evangelisch christliche Kirche der Pfalz Pfalzische Landeskirche united by confession with 506 000 parishioners in 1922 5 Evangelical Church of the old Prussian Union German Evangelische Kirche der altpreussischen Union ApU EKapU a church body united in administration comprising mostly Lutheran some Reformed and united congregations with 18 000 000 parishioners in 1922 5 Evangelical Lutheran Church in Reuss Elder Line German Evangelisch lutherische Kirche in Reuss altere Linie Lutheran with 70 000 parishioners in 1922 5 Evangelical Lutheran State Church of the Free State of Saxony German Evangelisch lutherische Landeskirche des Freistaats Sachsen Lutheran with 4 509 000 parishioners in 1922 6 Evangelical Lutheran State Church of Schaumburg Lippe German Evangelisch lutherische Landeskirche von Schaumburg Lippe Lutheran with 44 000 parishioners in 1922 5 Evangelical Lutheran Church of Schleswig Holstein German Evangelisch Lutherische Landeskirche Schleswig Holsteins Lutheran with 1 361 000 parishioners in 1922 6 Thuringian Evangelical Church German Thuringer evangelische Kirche Lutheran with 1 384 000 parishioners in 1922 5 United Evangelical State Church of Waldeck and Pyrmont German Vereinigte evangelische Landeskirche von Waldeck und Pyrmont a church body united in administration comprising mostly Lutheran and few Reformed congregations with 65 000 parishioners in 1922 5 Evangelical State Church in Wurttemberg German Evangelische Landeskirche in Wurttemberg Lutheran though not mentioned in the official name with 1 668 000 parishioners in 1922 6 Associated members Edit Evangelical Church of Augsburg Confession and Helvetic Confession in Austria German Evangelische Kirche Augsburgischen and Helvetischen Bekenntnisses in Osterreich as of 1926 Synod of Rio Grande in Brazil Riograndenser Synode Sinodo Rio Grandense renamed as Igreja Evangelica de Confissao Luterana no Brasil as of 1968 Province of Germany of the Unitas Fratrum Moravian Church German Evangelische Bruderunitat in Deutschland References Edit Brethren in adversity Bishop George Bell the Church of England p7 George Kennedy Allen Bell Andrew Chandler 1997 In May 1922 a new German Evangelical Church Confederation the Deutsche Evangelische Kirchenbund was established with a Kirchentag or assembly of 210 representatives a Kirchenbundesrat or Church Confederation Council The correlation between political state German Land and church region in the Weimar period was not necessarily exact because regional churches mostly did not comply to territorial changes in the 19th century The government in effect collected church fees from those taxpayers enlisted as parishioners and distributed these funds to the churches Siegfried Hermle Handbuch der Deutschen Evangelischen Kirchen 1918 bis 1949 p15 2010 Die Grundung des Kirchenbundes wurde vorbereitet durch eine Vorkonferenz in Kassel 1919 und die Deutschen Evangelischen Kirchentage in Dresden 1919 und Stuttgart 1921 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Sebastian Muller Rolli in collaboration with Reiner Anselm Evangelische Schulpolitik in Deutschland 1918 1958 Dokumente und Darstellung Gottingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1999 Eine Veroffentlichung des Comenius Instituts Munster p 30 ISBN 3 525 61362 8 a b c d e Sebastian Muller Rolli in collaboration with Reiner Anselm Evangelische Schulpolitik in Deutschland 1918 1958 Dokumente und Darstellung Gottingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1999 Eine Veroffentlichung des Comenius Instituts Munster p 29 ISBN 3 525 61362 8 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title German Protestant Church Confederation amp oldid 1166499606, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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