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Prussian Union of Churches
The union created one of the largest Protestant bodies in Europe, bringing together a large part of German Protestants into a single church. 1817 Prussia in dark blue.
Classification	Protestant
Orientation	United Protestant (Lutheran and Calvinist)
Region	Prussia
Headquarters	Berlin
Origin	1817
Merger of	Lutheran and Calvinist congregations in Prussia
2003 subsumed into the Union of Evangelical Churches (EKD); seat moved from Berlin to Hanover

The Prussian Union of Churches (known under multiple other names) was a major Protestant church body which emerged in 1817 from a series of decrees by Frederick William III of Prussia that united both Lutheran and Reformed denominations in Prussia. Although not the first of its kind, the Prussian Union was the first to occur in a major German state.

It became the biggest independent religious organization in the German Empire and later Weimar Germany, with about 18 million parishioners. The church underwent two schisms (one permanent since the 1830s, one temporary 1934–1948), due to changes in governments and their policies. After being the favoured state church of Prussia in the 19th century, it suffered interference and oppression at several times in the 20th century, including the persecution of many parishioners.

In the 1920s, the Second Polish Republic and Lithuania, and in the 1950s to 1970s, East Germany, the People's Republic of Poland, and the Soviet Union, imposed permanent or temporary organizational divisions, eliminated entire congregations, and expropriated church property, transferring it either to secular uses or to different churches more favoured by these various governments. In the course of the Second World War, church property was either damaged or destroyed by strategic bombing, and by war's end, many parishioners had fled from the advancing Soviet forces. After the war, complete ecclesiastical provinces vanished following the flight and expulsion of Germans living east of the Oder-Neiße line.

The two post-war periods saw major reforms within the Church, strengthening the parishioners' democratic participation. The Church counted many renowned theologians as its members, including Friedrich Schleiermacher, Julius Wellhausen (temporarily), Adolf von Harnack, Karl Barth (temporarily), Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Martin Niemöller (temporarily), to name only a few. In the early 1950s, the church body was transformed into an umbrella, after its prior ecclesiastical provinces had assumed independence in the late 1940s. Following the decline in number of parishioners due to the German demographic crisis and growing irreligion, the Church was subsumed into the Union of Evangelical Churches in 2003.

Status and official names

Years	Official name
1817-1821	Prussian Union of Churches
1821-1845	Evangelical Church in the Royal Prussian Lands
1845-1875	Evangelical State Church of Prussia
1875-1922	Evangelical State Church of Prussia's older Provinces
1922-1953	Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union
1953-2004	Evangelical Church of the Union
2004–present	incorporated into Union of Evangelical Churches

The many changes in the Church throughout its history are reflected in its several name changes. These include:

• 1817–1821: The church union was still being regulated by Prussian officials, and no official name was taken up for it yet. Informal names reported elsewhere included Prussian Union of Churches and the Union of Churches in Prussia.
• 1821–1845: Evangelical Church in the Royal Prussian Lands – the state church
• 1845–1875: Evangelical State Church of Prussia – the state church besides other recognised Protestant church bodies
• 1875–1922: Evangelical State Church of Prussia's older Provinces – the state church in the old provinces of Prussia besides other recognised Protestant church bodies
• 1922–1933, 24 June: Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union – an independent church among other recognised Protestant church bodies
• 24 June to 15 July 1933: State control abolished the freedom of religion and a Nazi-loyal leadership was imposed
• 15 July 1933 – 28 February 1934: Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union under new streamlined leadership
• 1 March to 20 November 1934: The streamlined leadership abolished the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union as an independent church body and merged it in the new Nazi-submissive German Evangelical Church
• 29 May 1934 – 1945: Confessing Christians declared that the imposed Nazi-inspired (so-called German Christian) leadership had brought the church to a schism, with the Confessing Church and their newly created bodies (partially established since January 1934) representing the true Evangelical church.
• 20 November 1934 – 1945: The Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union restored by the verdict of the Landgericht (Berlin court), resulting in two church bodies–one Nazi-recognised and one gradually driven underground–each claiming to represent the true church.
• 1945–1953: The Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union partially cleansed its leading bodies of German Christians and appointed Nazi opponents and persons of moderate neutrality.
• 1953–2003: Evangelical Church of the Union, an independent ecclesiastical umbrella among other recognised Protestant umbrellas and church bodies.
• 2004: The Evangelical Church of the Union merged in the Union of Evangelical Churches.

History

The Calvinist (Reformed) and Lutheran Protestant churches had existed in parallel after Prince-Elector John Sigismund declared his conversion from Lutheranism to Calvinism in 1617, with most of his subjects remaining Lutheran. However, a significant Calvinist minority had grown due to the reception of thousands of Calvinists refugees fleeing oppression by the Catholic Counter-Reformation in Bohemia, France (Huguenots), the Low Countries, and Wallonia or migrants from Jülich-Cleves-Berg, the Netherlands, Poland, or Switzerland. Their descendants made up the bulk of the Calvinists in Brandenburg. At issue over many decades was how to unite into one church.

Royal attempts to merge Lutherans and Calvinists

One year after he ascended to the throne in 1798, Frederick William III, being summus episcopus (Supreme Governor of the Protestant Churches), decreed a new common liturgical agenda (service book) to be published for use in both the Lutheran and Reformed congregations. The king, a Reformed Christian, lived in a denominationally mixed marriage with the Lutheran Queen Louise (1776–1810), which is why they never partook of Communion together.^[1] A commission was formed in order to prepare this common agenda. This liturgical agenda was the culmination of the efforts of his predecessors to unify the two Protestant churches in Prussia and in its predecessor, the Electorate of Brandenburg.

Major reforms to the administration of Prussia were undertaken after the defeat by Napoléon's army at the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt. As a part of these reforms, the separate leadership structures of both the Lutheran Church (with its chief body, the all-Prussian Lutherisches Oberkonsistorium (Lutheran Upper Consistory), 1750–1808, and the Reformed Churches (with their chief bodies, the all-Prussian Französisches Oberkonsistorium /Consistoire supérieur (French Supreme Consistory); 1701–1808, and the all-Prussian German-speaking Reformed Kirchendirektorium (Church Directory); 1713–1808) were abolished and the tasks of the three administrations were taken on by the Sektion für den Kultus und öffentlichen Unterricht (Section for the cult and public instruction), also competent for the Catholic church and the Jewish congregations, forming a department in the Prussian Ministry of the Interior.^[1]

Since the Reformation, the two Protestant denominations in Brandenburg had had their own ecclesiastical governments under state control through the crown as Supreme Governor. However, under the new absolutism then in vogue, the churches were under a civil bureaucratic state supervision by a ministerial section. In 1808, the Reformed Friedrich Schleiermacher, pastor of Trinity Church (Berlin-Friedrichstadt), issued his ideas for a constitutional reform of the Protestant Churches, also proposing a union.^[2]

Under the influence of the centralising movement of absolutism and the Napoleonic Age, after the defeat of Napoléon I in 1815, rather than reestablishing the previous denominational leadership structures, all religious communities were placed under a single consistory in each of the then ten Prussian provinces.^[1] This differed from the old structure in that the new leadership administered the affairs of all faiths; Catholics, Jews, Lutherans, Mennonites, Moravians, and Calvinists (Reformed Christians).

In 1814, the Principality of Neuchâtel had been restituted to the Berlin-based Hohenzollern, who had ruled it in personal union from 1707 until 1806. In 1815, Frederick William III agreed that this French-speaking territory could join the Swiss Confederation (which was not yet an integrated federation, but a mere confederacy) as the Canton of Neuchâtel. The church body of the prevailingly Calvinist Neuchâtelians did not rank as a state church but was independent, since at the time of its foundation in 1540, the ruling princely House of Orléans-Longueville (Valois-Dunois) was Catholic. Furthermore, no Lutheran congregation existed in Neuchâtel. Thus the Reformed Church of Neuchâtel Canton [de] was not an object of Frederick William's Union policy.

In January 1817, the cult and public instruction section was separated off as the Prussian Ministry of the Spiritual, Educational and Medical Affairs [de], usually called Cult Ministry (Kultusministerium).^[1] Karl vom Stein zum Altenstein was appointed as minister. The Reformed churches and the Lutheran church were thus administered by one department within the same ministry. The ministry introduced the preaching gown (German: Talar) as the usual clerical clothing.^[1]

On 27 September 1817, Frederick William announced, through a text written by Eylert, that Potsdam's Reformed court and garrison congregation, led by Court Preacher Rulemann Friedrich Eylert [de], and the Lutheran garrison congregation, both of whom used the Calvinist Garrison Church, would unite into one Evangelical Christian congregation on Reformation Day, 31 October, the 300th anniversary of the Reformation.^[1] Already the day before Lutherans and Reformed Christians celebrated the Lord's Supper together in Berlin's Lutheran St. Nicholas' Church.^[1]

On 7 November, Frederick William expressed his desire to see the Protestant congregations around Prussia follow this example, and become Union congregations.^[1] Lutherans of the Lutheran state church of Nassau-Saarbrücken, and Calvinists in the southerly Saar area had already formed a church united in administration on 24 October (Saarbrücken Union [de]). However, because of the unique constitutive role of congregations in Protestantism, no congregation was forced by the King's decree into merger. Thus, in the years that followed, many Lutheran and Reformed congregations did follow the example of Potsdam, and became merged congregations, while others maintained their former Lutheran or Reformed denomination.

Especially in many Rhenish places, Lutherans and Calvinists merged their parishes to form United Protestant congregations.^[3] When Prussia finally received a parliament in 1847, some church leadership offices included a seat in the first chamber of non-elected, but appointed members (succeeded by the House of Lords of Prussia as of 1854).

A number of steps were taken to effect the number of pastors that would become Union pastors. Candidates for ministry, from 1820 onwards were required to state whether they would be willing to join the Union. All of the theological faculty at the Rhenish Frederick William's University in Bonn belonged to the Union. An ecumenical ordination vow in which the pastor avowed allegiance to the Evangelical Church was also formulated.

Quarrels over the union

In 1821, the administrative umbrella comprising the Protestant congregations in Prussia adopted the name Evangelical Church in the Royal Prussian Lands (German: Evangelische Kirche in den Königlich-Preußischen Landen).^[4] At Christmas time the same year, a common liturgical agenda was produced, as a result of a great deal of personal work by Frederick William, as well by the commission that he had appointed in 1798. The agenda was not well received by many Lutherans, as it was seen to compromise the wording of the Words of Institution to the point that the Real Presence was not proclaimed. More importantly, the increasing coercion of the civil authorities into church affairs was viewed as a new threat to Protestant freedom of a kind not seen since the Papacy.

In 1822, the Protestant congregations were directed to use only the newly formulated Agenda for worship. This met with strong objections from Lutheran pastors around Prussia. Despite the opposition, 5,343 out of 7,782 Protestant congregations were using the new agenda by 1825. Frederick William III took notice of Daniel Amadeus Neander [de], who had become his subject by the annexation of Royal Saxon territory in 1816, and who had helped the king to implement the agenda in his Lutheran congregations. In 1823, the king made him the Provost of St. Petri Church(then the highest ranking ecclesiastical office in Berlin) and an Oberkonsistorialrat (supreme consistorial councillor) and thus a member of the Marcher Consistory. He became an influential confidant of the king and one of his privy councillors and a referee to Minister Stein zum Altenstein.

After in 1818, 16 provincial synods – in German parlance a synod is a church parliament rather than the district it represents – had convened. Minister Stein zum Altenstein and the King were disappointed over the outcome, especially after the Marcher provincial synod, disliking the whole idea of parishioners' participation in church governance.^[5] The king then preferred a rather top-down organization and introduced the ecclesiastical leadership function of general superintendents, which had already existed in some provinces before the reform.

In 1828, Neander was appointed first General Superintendent of the Kurmark (1829–1853).^[6] Thus Neander fought in three fields for the new agenda, on the governmental level, within the church, and in the general public, by publications such as Luther in Beziehung auf die evangelische Kirchen-Agende in den Königlich Preussischen Landen^[7] (1827). In 1830, the king bestowed him the very unusual, title of honorary bishop. The king also bestowed titles on other collaborators in implementing the Union, with the honorary title of bishop, such as Eylert (1824), Johann Heinrich Bernhard Dräseke [de] (1832), and Wilhelm Ross [de] (1836).

Debate and opposition to the new agenda persisted until 1829, when a revised edition of the agenda was produced. This liturgy incorporated a greater level of elements from the Lutheran liturgical tradition. With this introduction, the dissent against the agenda was greatly reduced. However, a significant minority felt this was merely a temporary political compromise with which the king could continue his ongoing campaign to establish a civil authority over their freedom of conscience.

In June 1829, Frederick William ordered that all Protestant congregations and clergy in Prussia give up the names Lutheran or Reformed and take up the name Evangelical. The decree was not to enforce a change of belief or denomination, but was only a change of nomenclature. Subsequently, the term Evangelical (German: evangelisch) became the usual general expression for Protestant in the German language. In April 1830, Frederick William, in his instructions for the upcoming celebration of the 300th anniversary of the presentation of the Augsburg Confession, ordered all Protestant congregations in Prussia to celebrate the Lord's Supper using the new agenda. Rather than having the unifying effect that Frederick William desired, the decree created a great deal of dissent amongst Lutheran congregations. In 1830, Johann Gottfried Scheibel, professor of theology at the Silesian Frederick William's University, founded in Breslau the first Lutheran congregation in Prussia, independent of the Union and outside of its umbrella organisation Evangelical Church in the Royal Prussian Lands.

In a compromise with some dissenters, who had now earned the name Old Lutherans, in 1834 Frederick William issued a decree, which stated that Union would only be in the areas of governance, and in the liturgical agenda, and that the respective congregations could retain their denominational identities.^[8] However, in a bid to quell future dissensions of his Union, dissenters were also forbidden from organising sectarian groups.

In defiance of this decree, a number of Lutheran pastors and congregations – like that in Breslau  – believing it was contrary to the Will of God to obey the king's decree, continued to use the old liturgical agenda and sacramental rites of the Lutheran church. Becoming aware of this defiance, officials sought out those who acted against the decree. Pastors who were caught were suspended from their ministry. If suspended pastors were caught acting in a pastoral role, they were imprisoned. Having now shown his hand as a tyrant bent on oppressing their religious freedom, and under continual police surveillance, the Evangelical Church in the Royal Prussian Lands began disintegrating.

Old Lutheran schism

By 1835, many dissenting Old Lutheran groups were looking to emigration as a means to finding religious freedom.^[9] Some groups emigrated to the United States and to Australia in the years leading up to 1840. They formed what are today the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (the second largest Lutheran denomination in the U.S), and the Lutheran Church of Australia, respectively.

With the death of Frederick William III in 1840, King Frederick William IV ascended to the throne. He released the pastors who had been imprisoned, and allowed the dissenting groups to form religious organisations in freedom. In 1841, the Old Lutherans who had stayed in Prussia convened in a general synod in Breslau and founded the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Prussia, which merged in 1972 with Old Lutheran church bodies in other German states to become today's Independent Evangelical-Lutheran Church (German: Selbständige Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche, or SELK). On 23 July 1845, the royal government recognised the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Prussia and its congregations as legal entities. In the same year the Evangelical Church in the Royal Prussian Lands reinforced its self-conception as the Prussian State's church and was renamed as the Evangelical State Church of Prussia (German: Evangelische Landeskirche Preußens).^[4]

Protestant churches in Prussia's new provinces

In 1850, the predominantly Catholic principalities of Hohenzollern-Hechingen and Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, ruled by Catholic princely branches of the Hohenzollern family, joined the Kingdom of Prussia and became the Province of Hohenzollern. There had hardly been any Protestants in the tiny area, but with the support from Berlin congregational, structures were built up. Until 1874, three (later altogether five) congregations were founded and in 1889, organised as a deanery of its own. The congregations were stewarded by the Evangelical Supreme Church Council (see below) like congregations of expatriates abroad. On 1 January 1899, the congregations became an integral part of the Prussian state church. No separate ecclesiastical province was established, but the deanery was supervised by that of the Rhineland. In 1866, Prussia annexed the Kingdom of Hanover (then converted into the Province of Hanover), the Free City of Frankfurt upon Main, the Electorate of Hesse, and the Duchy of Nassau (combined as Province of Hesse-Nassau) as well as the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein (becoming the Province of Schleswig-Holstein), all prevailingly Lutheran territories, where Lutherans and the minority of Calvinists had not united. After the trouble with the Old Lutherans in pre-1866 Prussia, the Prussian government refrained from imposing the Prussian Union onto the church bodies in these territories. Also the reconciliation of the Lutheran majority of the citizens in the annexed states with their new Prussian citizenship was not to be further complicated by religious quarrels.^[4] Thus the Protestant organisations in the annexed territories maintained their prior constitutions or developed new, independent Lutheran or Calvinist structures.^[10]

Foreign commitment of the Church

At the instigation of Frederick William IV the Anglican Church of England and the Evangelical Church in the Royal Prussian Lands founded the Anglican-Evangelical Bishopric in Jerusalem (1841–1886). Its bishops and clergy proselytised in the Holy Land among the non-Muslim native population and German immigrants, such as the Templers. But Calvinist, Evangelical, and Lutheran expatriates in the Holy Land from Germany and Switzerland also joined the German-speaking congregations.

A number of congregations of Arabic or German language emerged in Beit Jalla (Ar.), Beit Sahour (Ar.), Bethlehem of Judea (Ar.), German Colony (Haifa) (Ger.), American Colony (Jaffa) (Ger.), Jerusalem (Ar. a. Ger.), Nazareth (Ar.), and Waldheim (Ger.).

With financial aid from Prussia, other German states, the Association of Jerusalem [de], the Evangelical Association for the Construction of Churches [de], and others, a number of churches and other premises were built. But there were also congregations of emigrants and expatriates in other areas of the Ottoman Empire (2), as well as in Argentina (3), Brazil (10), Bulgaria (1), Chile (3), Egypt (2), Italy (2), the Netherlands (2), Portugal (1), Romania (8), Serbia (1), Spain (1), Switzerland (1), United Kingdom (5), and Uruguay (1) and the foreign department of the Evangelical Supreme Church Council (see below) stewarded them.^[11]

Structures and bodies of the Evangelical State Church of Prussia

The Evangelical State Church of Prussia stayed abreast of the changes and was renamed in 1875 as the Evangelical State Church of Prussia's older Provinces (German: Evangelische Landeskirche der älteren Provinzen Preußens).^[4] Its central bodies were the executive Evangelical Supreme Church Council (German: Evangelischer Oberkirchenrat, EOK,^[12] est. in 1850, renamed the Church Chancery in 1951), seated in Jebensstraße # 3 (Berlin, 1912–2003^[13]) and the legislative General Synod (German: Generalsynode).

The General Synod first convened in June 1846, presided by Daniel Neander, and consisting of representatives of the clergy, the parishioners, and members nominated by the king. The General Synod found agreement on the teaching and the ordination, but the king did not confirm any of its decisions.^[5] After 1876 the general synod comprised 200 synodals, 50 laymen parishioners, 50 pastors, 50 deputies of the Protestant theological university faculties as ex officio members, and 50 synodals appointed by the king.^[14]

The Evangelical State Church of Prussia's older Provinces had substructures, called ecclesiastical province (German: Kirchenprovinz; see ecclesiastical province of the Evangelical State Church of Prussia), in the nine pre-1866 political provinces of Prussia, to wit in the Province of East Prussia (homonymous ecclesiastical province), in Berlin, which had become a separate Prussian administrative unit in 1881, and the Province of Brandenburg (Ecclesiastical Province of the March of Brandenburg for both), in the Province of Pomerania (homonymous), in the Province of Posen (homonymous), in the Rhine Province and since 1899 in the Province of Hohenzollern (Ecclesiastical Province of the Rhineland), in the Province of Saxony (homonymous), in the Province of Silesia (homonymous), in the Province of Westphalia (homonymous), and in the Province of West Prussia (homonymous).

Every ecclesiastical province had a provincial synod representing the provincial parishioners and clergy,^[15] and one or more consistories led by general superintendents. The ecclesiastical provinces of Pomerania and Silesia had two (after 1922), those of Saxony and the March of Brandenburg, three – from 1911 to 1933 the latter even four – general superintendents, annually alternating in the leadership of the respective consistory.

The two western provinces, Rhineland and Westphalia, had the strongest Calvinist background, since they included the territories of the former Duchies of Berg, Cleves, and Juliers and the Counties of Mark, Tecklenburg, the Siegerland, and the Principality of Wittgenstein, all of which had Calvinist traditions. Already in 1835, the provincial church constitutions (German: Provinzial-Kirchenordnung) provided for a general superintendent and congregations in both ecclesiastical provinces with presbyteries of elected presbyters.

While this level of parishioners' democracy emerged in the other Prussian provinces only in 1874, when Otto von Bismarck, in his second term as Prussian Minister-President (9 November 1873 – 20 March 1890), gained the parliamentary support of the National Liberals in the Prussian State Diet (German: Landtag). Prussia's then minister of education and religious affairs, Adalbert Falk, put the bill through, which extended the combined Rhenish and Westphalian presbyterial and consistorial church constitution to all the Evangelical State Church in Prussia.^[16] Therefore, the terminology is differing: In the Rhineland and Westphalia a presbytery is called in German: Presbyterium, a member thereof is a Presbyter, while in the other provinces the corresponding terms are Gemeindekirchenrat (congregation council) with its members being called Älteste (elder).

Authoritarian traditions competed with liberal and modern ones. Committed congregants formed Kirchenparteien,^[17] which nominated candidates for the elections of the parochial presbyteries and of the provincial or church-wide general synods. A strong Kirchenpartei were the Konfessionellen (the denominationals), representing congregants of Lutheran tradition, who had succumbed in the process of uniting the denominations after 1817 and still fought the Prussian Union. They promoted Neo-Lutheranism and strictly opposed the liberal stream of Kulturprotestantismus [de], promoting rationalism and a reconcialition of belief and modern knowledge, advocated by Deutscher Protestantenverein.^[18]

A third Kirchenpartei was the anti-liberal Volkskirchlich-Evangelische Vereinigung (VEV, established in the mid-19th century, People's Church-Evangelical Association),^[19] colloquially Middle party (German: Mittelpartei), affirming the Prussian Union, criticising the Higher criticism in Biblical science, but still claiming the freedom of science also in theology. The middle party's long-serving president and member of the general synod (1891–1915) was the known law professor Wilhelm Kahl [de] (DVP), who co-authored the Weimar Constitution.^[20]

By far the most successful Kirchenpartei in church elections was the anti-liberal Positive [de] Union,^[19] being in common sense with the Konfessionellen in many fields, but affirming the Prussian Union. Therefore, the Positive Union often formed coalitions with the Konfessionellen. King William I of Prussia sided with the Positive Union.^[18] Before 1918 most consistories and the Evangelical Supreme Church Council were dominated by proponents of the Positive Union.^[21] In 1888 King William II of Prussia could only appoint the liberal Adolf von Harnack as professor of theology at the Frederick William University of Berlin after long public debates and protests by the Evangelical Supreme Church Council.^[22]

The ever-growing societal segment of the workers among the Evangelical parishioners had little affinity to the Church, which was dominated in their pastors and functionaries by members of the bourgeoisie and aristocracy. A survey held in early 1924 determine that in 96 churches in Berlin, Charlottenburg, and Schöneberg, only 9 to 15% of the parishioners actually attended the services.^[23] Congregations in workers' districts, often comprising several ten thousands of parishioners, usually counted hardly more than a hundred congregants in regular services.^[24] William II and his wife Augusta Viktoria of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg, who presided over the Evangelical Association for the Construction of Churches, often financed church construction for poor congregations and promoted massive programmes of church constructions especially in workers' districts, but could not increase the attraction of the State Church for the workers. However, it earned the queen the nickname Kirchen-Juste.^[24] More impetus reached the charitable work of the State Church, which was much carried by the Inner Mission and the diaconal work of deaconesses.

Modern anti-Semitism, emerging in the 1870s, with its prominent proponent Heinrich Treitschke and its famous opponent Theodor Mommsen, a son of a pastor and later Nobel Prize laureate, found also supporters among the proponents of traditional Protestant Anti-Judaism as promoted by the Prussian court preacher Adolf Stoecker. The new King William II dismissed him in 1890 for the reason of his political agitation by his anti-Semitic Christian Social Party, neo-paganism and personal scandals.^[25]

The intertwining of most leading clerics and church functionaries with traditional Prussian elites brought about that the State Church considered the First World War as a just war. Pacifists, like Hans Francke (Church of the Holy Cross, Berlin), Walter Nithack-Stahn (William I Memorial Church, Charlottenburg ), and Friedrich Siegmund-Schultze (Evangelical Auferstehungsheim, Friedensstraße No. 60, Berlin) made up a small, but growing minority among the clergy.^[26] The State Church supported the issuances of nine series of war bonds and subscribed itself for war bonds amounting to 41 million marks (ℳ).^[27]

Territorial and constitutional changes after 1918

With the end of the Prussian monarchy in 1918 also the king's function as summus episcopus (Supreme Governor of the Evangelical Church) ceased to exist. Furthermore, the Weimar Constitution of 1919 decreed the separation of state and religion. Thus its new constitution of 29 September 1922^[28] the Evangelical State Church of Prussia's older Provinces reorganised in 1922 under the name Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union (German: Evangelische Kirche der altpreußischen Union, EKapU or ApU).^[4] The church did not bear the term State Church within its name any more, taking into account that its congregations now spread over six sovereign states. The new name was after a denomination, not after a state any more. It became a difficult task to maintain the unity of the church, with some of the annexing states being opposed to the fact that church bodies within their borders keep a union with German church organisations.

The territory comprising the Ecclesiastical Province of Posen was now largely Polish, and except of small fringes that of West Prussia had been either seized by Poland or Danzig. The trans-Niemen part of East Prussia (Klaipėda Region) became a League of Nations mandate as of 10 January 1920 and parts of Prussian Silesia were either annexed by Czechoslovakia (Hlučín Region) or Poland (Polish Silesia), while four congregations of the Rhenish ecclesiastical province were seized by Belgium, and many more became part of the Mandatory Saar (League of Nations).

The Evangelical congregation in Hlučín, annexed by Czechoslovakia in 1920, joined thereafter the Silesian Evangelical Church of Augsburg Confession of Czech Silesia. The Polish government ordered the disentanglement of the Ecclesiastical Province of Posen of the Evangelical State Church of Prussia's older Provinces – except of its congregations remaining with Germany. The now Polish church body then formed the United Evangelical Church in Poland (German: Unierte Evangelische Kirche in Polen, Polish: Ewangelicki Kościół Unijny w Polsce),^[29] which existed separately from the Evangelical-Augsburg Church in Poland until 1945, when most of the former's congregants fled the approaching Soviet army or were subsequently denaturalised by Poland due to their German native language and expelled (1945–1950).

The United Evangelical Church in Poland also incorporated the Evangelical congregations in Pomerellia, ceded by Germany to Poland in February 1920, which prior used to belong to the Ecclesiastical Province of West Prussia, as well as the congregations in Soldau and 32 further East Prussian municipalities,^[30] which Germany ceded to Poland on 10 January 1920, prior belonging to the Ecclesiastical Province of East Prussia.^[29]

A number of congregations lay in those northern and western parts of the Province of Posen, which were not annexed by Poland and remained with Germany. They were united with those congregations of the westernmost area of West Prussia, which remained with Germany, to form the new Posen-West Prussian ecclesiastical province. The congregations in the eastern part of West Prussia remaining with Germany, joined the Ecclesiastical Province of East Prussia on 9 March 1921.^[30][31]

The 17 congregations in East Upper Silesia, ceded to Poland in 1922, constituted on 6 June 1923 as United Evangelical Church in Polish Upper Silesia [pl] (German: Unierte Evangelische Kirche in Polnisch Oberschlesien, Polish: Ewangelicki Kościół Unijny na polskim Górnym Śląsku).^[32] The church formed an old-Prussian ecclesiastical province until May 1937, when the German Polish Geneva Accord on Upper Silesia expired.^[29] Between 1945 and 1948 it underwent the same fate like the United Evangelical Church in Poland. The congregations in Eupen, Malmedy, Neu-Moresnet, and St. Vith, located in the now Belgian East Cantons, were disentangled from the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union as of 1 October 1922 and joined until 1923/1924 the Union des églises évangéliques protestantes de Belgique, which later transformed into the United Protestant Church in Belgium. They continue to exist until this very day.

The congregations in the territory seized by the Free City of Danzig, which prior belonged to the Ecclesiastical Province of West Prussia, transformed into the Regional Synodal Federation of the Free City of Danzig (German: Landessynodalverband der Freien Stadt Danzig).^[30] It remained an ecclesiastical province of the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union, since the Danzig Senate (government) did not oppose cross-border church bodies.^[29] The Danzig ecclesiastical province also co-operated with the United Evangelical Church in Poland as to the education of pastors, since its Polish theological students of German native language were hindered to study at German universities by restrictive Polish pass regulations.

The congregations in the League of Nations mandate of the Klaipėda Region (German: Memelgebiet) continued to belong to the Ecclesiastical Province of East Prussia [de]. When from 10 to 16 January 1923 neighbouring Lithuania conquered the mandatory territory and annexed it on 24 January, the situation of the congregations there turned precarious. On 8 May 1924 Lithuania and the mandatory powers France, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom signed the Klaipėda Convention, granting autonomy to the inhabitants of the Klaipėda Region. This enabled the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union to sign a contract with the Memel autonomous government (German: Landesdirektorium) under Viktoras Gailius on 23 July 1925 in order to maintain the affiliation of the congregations with the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union.

The Evangelical congregations in the Klaipėda Region were disentangled from the Ecclesiastical Province of East Prussia and formed the Regional Synodal Federation of the Memel Territory (Landessynodalverband Memelgebiet), being ranked an ecclesiastical province directly subordinate to the Evangelical Supreme Church Council with an own consistory in Klaipėda (est. in 1927), led by a general superintendent (at first Franz Gregor, after 1933 Otto Obereigner [de]).^[29] On 25 June 1934 the tiny church body of the Oldenburgian exclave Birkenfeld merged in the Rhenish ecclesiastical province.

The 1922 constitution of the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union included much stronger presbyterial structures and forms of parishioners' democratic participation in church matters. The parishioners of a congregation elected a presbytery and a congregants' representation (German: Gemeindevertretung). A number of congregations formed a deanery (German: Kirchenkreis), holding a deanery synod (German: Kreissynode) of synodals elected by the presbyteries. The deanery synodals elected the deanery synodal board (German: Kreissynodalvorstand), in charge of the ecclesiastical supervision of the congregations in a deanery, which was chaired by a superintendent, appointed by the provincial church council (German: Provinzialkirchenrat) after a proposal of the general superintendent.

The parishioners in the congregations elected synodals for their respective provincial synod – a legislative body – which again elected its governing board the provincial church council, which also included members delegated by the consistory. The consistory was the provincial administrative body, whose members were appointed by the Evangelical Supreme Church Council. Each consistory was chaired by a general superintendent, being the ecclesiastical, and a consistorial president (German: Konsistorialpräsident), being the administrative leader.

The provincial synods and the provincial church councils elected from their midst the synodals of the general synod, the legislative body of the overall Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union. The general synod elected the church senate (German: Kirchensenat), the governing board presided by the praeses of the general synod, elected by the synodals. Johann Friedrich Winckler held the office of praeses from 1915 until 1933. The church senate appointed the members of the Evangelical Supreme Church Council, the supreme administrative entity, which again appointed the members of the consistories.

Identity and self-conception in the Weimar years

The majority of parishioners stayed in a state of unease with the changes and many were skeptical towards the democracy of the Weimar Republic. Nationalist conservative groups dominated the general synods.^[29] Authoritarian traditions competed with liberal and modern ones. The traditional affinity to the former princely holders of the summepiscopacy often continued. So when in 1926 the leftist parties successfully launched a plebiscite to the effect of the expropriation of the German former regnal houses without compensation, the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union called up for an abstention from the election, holding up the commandment Thou shalt not steal.^[33] Thus the plesbiscite missed the minimum turnout and failed.

A problem was the spiritual vacuum, which emerged after the church stopped being a state church. Otto Dibelius, since 1925 general superintendent of Kurmark within the Ecclesiastical Province of the March of Brandenburg, published his book Das Jahrhundert der Kirche (The century of the Church^[34]), in which he declared the 20th century to be the era when the Evangelical Church may for the first time develop freely and gain the independence God would have wished for, without the burden and constraints of the state church function. He regarded the role of the church as even the more important, since the state of the Weimar Republic – in his eyes – would not provide the society with binding norms any more, thus this would be the task of the church.^[35] The church would have to stand for the defense of the Christian culture of the Occident. In this respect Dibelius regarded himself as consciously anti-Jewish, explaining in a circular to the pastors in his general superintendency district of Kurmark, "that with all degenerating phenomena of modern civilisation Judaism plays a leading role".^[36] His book was one of the most read on church matters in that period.^[35]

While this new self-conception helped the activists within the church, the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union could not increase the number of its activists. In Berlin the number of activists made up maybe 60,000 to 80,000 persons of an overall number of parishioners of more than 3 million within an overall of more than 4 million Berliners.^[35] Especially in Berlin the affiliation faded. By the end of the 1920s still 70% of the dead in Berlin were buried accompanied by an Evangelical ceremony and 90% of the children from Evangelical couples were baptised. But only 40% of the marriages in Berlin chose an Evangelical wedding ceremony.

Whereas in 1913, before the end of the monarchy, 20,500 parishioners seceded from the old-Prussian Church, the numbers soared – during the separation of the religions and the Free State of Prussia – to 133,379 in 1919 and 163,819 in 1920.^[37] However, these secessions were still compensated by baptisands and migrants. In the early and mid-1920s the annual number of secessions amounted to about 80,000.^[37] From 1928 to 1932 annually about 50,000 parishioners seceded from the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union.^[35]

In the field of church elections committed congregants formed new Kirchenparteien, which nominated candidates for the elections of the presbyteries and synods of different level. In 1919 Christian socialists founded the Covenant of Religious Socialists. As reaction to this politicisation the Evangelisch-unpolitische Liste (EuL, Evangelical unpolitical List) emerged, which ran for mandates besides the traditional Middle Party, Positive Union and another new Kirchenpartei, the Jungreformatorische Bewegung (Young Reformatory Movement).^[38] Especially in the country-side, there often were no developed Kirchenparteien, thus activist congregants formed common lists of candidates of many different opinions.^[38]

In February 1932 Protestant Nazis, above all Wilhelm Kube (presbyter at the Gethsemane Church, Berlin, and speaker of the six NSDAP parliamentarians in the Prussian State Diet) initiated the foundation of a new Kirchenpartei, the so-called Faith Movement of German Christians (German: Glaubensbewegung Deutsche Christen, DC), participating on 12–14 November 1932 for the first time in the elections for presbyters and synodals within the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union and gaining about a third of the seats in presbyteries and synods.^[39]

In the inter-war years the general synod convened five times.^[29] In 1927 it decided with a narrow majority to maintain the title general superintendent instead of replacing it by the title bishop.^[29] The same general synod voted for the admittance of women as vicars.^[29] The old-Prussian Church and the Free State of Prussia formalised their relationship by the concordat of 31 May 1931.^[29] By this concordat the church was given a say in appointing professors of Protestant theology and the contents they teach in Prussia's state universities, whereas the Free State could veto the appointment of leading functionaries.^[29]

After the system of state churches had disappeared with the monarchies in the German states, the question arose, why the Protestant church bodies within Germany did not merge. Besides the smaller Protestant denominations of the Mennonites, Baptists or Methodists, which were organised crossing state borders along denominational lines, there were 29 (later 28) church bodies organised along territorial borders of German states or Prussian provinces.^[40] All those, covering the territory of former monarchies with a ruling Protestant dynasty, had been state churches until 1918 – except of the Protestant church bodies of territories annexed by Prussia in 1866. Others had been no less territorially defined Protestant minority church bodies within states of Catholic monarchs, where – before 1918 – the Roman Catholic Church played the role of state church.

In fact, a merger 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 and uniting churches. Following the Schweizerischer Evangelischer Kirchenbund (Swiss Federation of Protestant Churches) of 1920, the then 29 territorially defined German Protestant church bodies founded the Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchenbund (German Federation of Protestant Churches) in 1922, which was no new merged church, but a loose confederacy of the existing independent church bodies.

Under Nazi rule

In the period of the Third Reich the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union fell into deep disunity. Most clerics, representatives and parishioners welcomed the Nazi takeover. Most Protestants suggested that the mass arrests, following the abolition of central civic rights by Paul von Hindenburg on 28 February 1933, hit the right persons. On 20 March 1933 Dachau concentration camp, the first official premise of its kind, was opened, while 150,000 hastily arrested inmates were held in hundreds of spontaneous so-called wild concentration camps, to be gradually evacuated into about 100 new official camps to be opened until the end of 1933.^[41]

On 21 March 1933 the newly elected Reichstag convened in the Evangelical Garrison Church of Potsdam, an event commemorated as the Day of Potsdam, and the locally competent Gen.-Supt. Dibelius preached.^[41] Dibelius downplayed the boycott against enterprises of Jewish proprietors and such of Gentiles of Jewish descent in an address for the US radio. Even after this clearly anti-Semitic action he repeated in his circular to the pastors of Kurmark on the occasion of Easter (16 April 1933) his anti-Jewish attitude, giving the same words as in 1928.^[42]

The Nazi Reich's government, aiming at streamlining the Protestant churches, recognised the German Christians as its means to do so. On 4 and 5 April 1933 representatives of the German Christians convened in Berlin and demanded the dismissal of all members of the executive bodies of the 28 Protestant church bodies in Germany. The German Christians demanded their ultimate merger into a uniform German Protestant Church, led according to the Nazi Führerprinzip by a Reich's Bishop (German: Reichsbischof), abolishing all democratic participation of parishioners in presbyteries and synods. The German Christians announced the appointment of a Reich's Bishop for 31 October 1933, the Reformation Day holiday.

Furthermore, the German Christians demanded to purify Protestantism of all Jewish patrimony. Judaism should no longer be regarded a religion, which can be adopted and given up, but a racial category which were genetic. Thus German Christians opposed proselytising among Jews. Protestantism should become a pagan kind heroic pseudo-Nordic religion. Of course the Old Testament, which includes the Ten Commandments and the virtue of charity (taken from the Torah, Book of Leviticus 19:18: "Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD."), was to be abandoned.

In a mood of an emergency through an impending Nazi takeover functionaries of the then officiating executive bodies of the 28 Protestant church bodies stole a march on the German Christians. Functionaries and activists worked hastily on negotiating between the 28 Protestant church bodies a legally indoubtable unification on 25 April 1933 three men convened, Hermann Kapler, president of the old-Prussian Evangelical Supreme Church Council – representing United Protestantism – August Marahrens, state bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran State Church of Hanover (for the Lutherans), and the Reformed Hermann-Albert Klugkist Hesse, director of the preacher seminary in Wuppertal, to prepare the constitution of a united church which they called the German Evangelical Church too.^[43]

This caused the later confusion when the streamlined Reich church and the Confessing Church alike identified as being the legitimate church of that name. The Nazi government compelled the negotiators to include its representative, the former army chaplain Ludwig Müller from Königsberg, a devout German Christian. The plans were to dissolve the German Evangelical Church Confederation and the 28 church bodies and to replace them by a uniform Protestant church, to be called the German Evangelical Church (German: Deutsche Evangelische Kirche).

On 27 May 1933 representatives of the 28 church bodies gathered in Berlin, and, against a minority voting for Ludwig Müller, elected Friedrich von Bodelschwingh, head of the Bethel Institution and member of the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union, Reich's Bishop, a newly created title.^[44] The German Christians strictly opposed that election, because Bodelschwingh was not their partisan. Thus the Nazis, who were permanently breaking the law, stepped in, using the streamlined Prussian government, and declared the functionaries had exceeded their authority.

Abolition of religious autonomy

Once the Nazi government figured out that the Protestant church bodies would not be streamlined from within using the German Christians, they abolished the constitutional freedom of religion and religious organisation, declaring the unauthorised election of Bodelschwingh had created a situation contravening the constitutions of the Protestant churches, and on these grounds, on 24 June the Nazi Minister of Cultural Affairs, Bernhard Rust appointed August Jäger as Prussian State Commissioner for the Prussian ecclesiastical affairs (German: Staatskommissar für die preußischen kirchlichen Angelegenheiten).

This act clearly violated the status of the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union as statutory body (German: Körperschaft des öffentlichen Rechts) and subjecting it to Jäger's orders (see Struggle of the Churches, German: Kirchenkampf).^[45] Bodelschwingh resigned as Reich's Bishop the same day. On 28 June Jäger appointed Müller as new Reich's Bishop and on 6 July as leader of the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union, then with 18 million parishioners by far the biggest Protestant church body within Germany, with 41 million Protestants altogether (total population: 62 millions).^[46]

Kapler resigned as president of the Evangelical Supreme Church Council, after he had applied for retirement on 3 June, and Gen.-Supt. Wilhelm Haendler (competent for Berlin's suburbia), then presiding the March of Brandenburg Consistory retired for age reasons.^[45] Jäger furloughed Martin Albertz (superintendent of the Spandau deanery^[47]), Dibelius, Max Diestel (superintendent of the Cölln Land I deanery in the southwestern suburbs of Berlin), Emil Karow (general superintendent of Berlin inner city), and Ernst Vits (general superintendent of Lower Lusatia and the New March), thus decapitating the complete spiritual leadership of the Ecclesiastical Province of the March of Brandenburg.^[48]

Then the German Christian Dr. iur. Friedrich Werner [de] was appointed as provisional president of the Evangelical Supreme Church Council, which he remained after his official appointment by the re-elected old-Prussian general synod until 1945.^[45] For 2 July, Werner ordered general thanksgiving services in all congregations to thank for the new imposed streamlined leadership. Many pastors protested that and held instead services of penance bearing the violation of the church constitution in mind. The pastors Gerhard Jacobi [de] (William I Memorial Church, Berlin), Fritz (Friedrich) Müller, Martin Niemöller, Eberhard Röhricht (all the three Dahlem Congregation, Berlin) and Eitel-Friedrich von Rabenau (Apostle Paul Church, Berlin, formerly Immanuel Church (Tel Aviv-Yafo), 1912–1917) wrote a letter of protest to Jäger. Pastor Otto Grossmann (Mark's Church Südende, Berlin [de] within Steglitz Congregation) criticised the violation of the church constitution in a speech on the radio and was subsequently arrested and interrogated (July 1933).^[48]

On 11 July German-Christian and intimidated non-such representatives of all the 28 Protestant church bodies in Germany declared the German Evangelical Church Confederation to be dissolved and the German Evangelical Church to be founded. On 14 July Hesse, Kapler and Marahrens presented the newly developed constitution of the German Evangelical Church, which the Nazi government declared to be valid.^[45] The same day Adolf Hitler discretionarily decreed an unconstitutional premature re-election of all presbyters and synodals in all 28 church bodies for 23 July.^[49]

The new synods of the 28 Protestant churches were to declare their dissolution as separate church bodies. Representatives of all 28 Protestant churches were to attend the newly created National Synod to confirm Müller as Reich's Bishop. Müller already now regarded himself as leader of that new organisation. He established a Spiritual Ministerium (German: Geistliches Ministerium, seated in Berlin, Marchstraße # 2 in the former premises of the German Evangelical Church Confederation), being the executive body, consisting of four persons, who were not to be elected, but whom he appointed himself.

Church under streamlined leadership

On 15 July, the Nazi government lifted state control over the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union, claiming the counter-constitutional situation were healed. Since the day Müller had become leader of the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union he systematically abolished the intra-organisational democracy.^[50] On 4 August Müller assumed the title State Bishop (German: Landesbischof), a title and function non-existing in the constitution of the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union, and claimed hierarchical supremacy over all clerics and other employees as is usual for Catholic bishops.

In the campaign for the premature re-election of all presbyters and synodals on 23 July the Nazi Reich's government sided with the German Christians. Under the impression of the government's partiality the other existing lists of opposing candidates united to form the list Evangelical Church. The Gestapo (est. 26 April 1933) ordered the list to change its name and to replace all its election posters and flyers issued under the forbidden name. Pastor Wilhelm Harnisch (Good Samaritan Church, Berlin [de]) hosted the opposing list in the office for the homeless of his congregation in Mirbachstraße # 24 (now Bänschstraße # 52).

The Gestapo confiscated the office and the printing-press there, in order to hinder any reprint.^[51] Thus the list, which had renamed into Gospel and Church [de] (German: Evangelium und Kirche), took refuge with the Evangelical Press Association (German: Evangelischer Preßverband), presided by Dibelius and printed new election posters in its premises in Alte Jacobstraße # 129, Berlin.^[52] The night before the election Hitler appealed on the radio to all Protestants to vote for candidates of the German Christians, while the Nazi Party declared, all its Protestant members were obliged to vote for the German Christians.

Thus the turnout in the elections was extraordinarily high, since most non-observant Protestants, who since long aligned with the Nazis, had voted. 70–80% of the newly elected presbyters and synodals of the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union were candidates of the German Christians. In Berlin e.g., the candidates of Gospel and Church only won the majority in two presbyteries, in Niemöller's Dahlem Congregation,^[53] and in the congregation in Berlin-Staaken-Dorf.^[54] In 1933 among the pastors of Berlin, 160 stuck to Gospel and Church, 40 were German Christians while another 200 had taken neither side.

German Christians won a majority within the general synod of the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union^[55] and within its provincial synods – except of the one of Westphalia –,^[55] as well as in many synods of other Protestant church bodies, except of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria right of the river Rhine, the Evangelical Lutheran State Church of Hanover, and the Lutheran Evangelical State Church in Württemberg, which the opposition thus regarded as uncorrupted intact churches, as opposed to the other than so-called destroyed churches.

On 24 August 1933 the new synodals convened for a March of Brandenburg provincial synod. They elected a new provincial church council with 8 seats for the German Christians and two for Detlev von Arnim-Kröchlendorff, an esquire owning a manor in Kröchlendorff (a part of today's Nordwestuckermark), and Gerhard Jacobi (both Gospel and Church). Then the German Christian majority of 113 synodals over 37 nays decided to appeal to the general synod to introduce the so-called Aryan paragraph (German: Arierparagraph) as church law, thus demanding that employees of the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union – being all baptised Protestant church members -, who had grandparents, who were enrolled as Jews, or who were married with such persons, were all to be fired. Gerhard Jacobi led the opposing provincial synodals. Other provincial synods demanded the Aryan paragraph too.^[51]

On 7 April 1933 the Nazi Reich's government had introduced an equivalent law for all state officials and employees. By introducing the Nazi racist attitudes into the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union, the approving synodals betrayed the Christian sacrament of baptism, according to which this act makes a person a Christian, superseding any other faith, which oneself may have been observing before and knowing nothing about any racial affinity as a prerequisite of being a Christian, let alone one's grandparents' religious affiliation being an obstacle to being Christian.

Rudolf Bultmann and Hans von Soden [de], professors of Protestant theology at the Philip's University in Marburg upon Lahn, wrote in their assessment in 1933, that the Aryan paragraph contradicts the Protestant confession of everybody's right to perform her or his faith freely. "The Gospel is to be universally preached to all peoples and races and makes all baptised persons insegregable brethren to each other. Therefore, unequal rights, due to national or racial arguments, are inacceptable as well as any segregation."^[56]

On 5 and 6 September the same year the General Synod of the whole Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union convened in the building of the former Prussian State Council^[57] (Leipziger Straße No. 3, now seat of the Federal Council (Germany)).^[58] Also here the German Christians used their new majority, thus this General Synod became known among the opponents as the Brown Synod, for brown being the colour of the Nazi party.

When on 5 September Jakob Emil Karl Koch [de], then praeses of the unadulterated Westphalian provincial synod, tried to bring forward the arguments of the opposition against the Aryan paragraph and the abolition of synodal and presbyterial democracy, the majority of German Christian synodals shouted him down. The German Christians abused the general synod as a mere acclamation, like a Nazi party convention. Koch and his partisans left the synod.^[58] The majority of German Christians thus voted in the Aryan paragraph for all the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union. On 5 September the brown synodals passed the retroactive church law, which only established the function and title of bishop.^[59] The same law renamed the ecclesiastical provinces into bishoprics (German: Bistum/Bistümer, sg./pl.), each led – according to the new law of 6 September – by a provincial bishop (German: Provinzialbischof) replacing the prior general superintendents.^[60]

By enabling the dismissal of all Protestants of Jewish descent from jobs with the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union, the official church bodies accepted the Nazi racist doctrine of anti-Semitism. This breach with Christian principles within the range of the church was unacceptable to many church members. Nevertheless, pursuing Martin Luther's Doctrine of the two kingdoms (God rules within the world: Directly within the church and in the state by means of the secular government) many church members could not see any basis, how a Protestant church body could interfere with the anti-Semitism performed in the state sphere, since in its self-conception the church body was a religious, not a political organisation.^[61] Only few parishioners and clergy, mostly of Reformed tradition, followed Jean Cauvin's doctrine of the Kingdom of Christ within the church and the world.^[62]

Among them were Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who demanded the church bodies to oppose the abolition of democracy and the unlawfulness in the general political sphere.^[63] Especially pastors in the countryside – often younger men, since the traditional pastoral career ladder started in a village parish – were outraged about this development. Herbert Goltzen, Eugen Weschke, and Günter Jacob, three pastors from Lower Lusatia, regarded the introduction of the Aryan paragraph as the violation of the confession. In late summer 1933 Jacob, pastor in Noßdorf (a part of today's Forst in Lusatia/Baršć), developed the central theses, which became the self-commitment of the opponents.

In reaction to the anti-Semitic discriminations within the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union the church-aligned Breslauer Christliches Wochenblatt (Breslau Christian Weekly) published the following criticism in the October edition of 1933:

"Vision:

Service. The introit faded away. The pastor stands at the altar and begins:

›Non-Aryans are requested to leave the church!‹

Nobody budges.

›Non-Aryans are requested to leave the church!‹

Everything remains still.

›Non-Aryans are requested to leave the church!‹

Then Christ descends from the Crucifix of the altar and leaves the church."

Emergency Covenant of Pastors

On 11 September 1933 Gerhard Jacobi gathered c. 60 opposing pastors, who clearly saw the breach of Christian and Protestant principles. Weschke and Günter Jacob proposed to found the Emergency Covenant of Pastors (German: Pfarrernotbund), and so they did, electing Pastor Niemöller their president.^[58] On the basis of the theses of Günter Jacob its members concluded that a schism was a matter of fact,^[64] a new Protestant church was to be established, since the official organisation was anti-Christian, heretical and therefore illegitimate.^[65][66] Each pastor joining the Covenant – until the end of September 1933 2,036 out of a total of 18,842 Protestant pastors in Germany acceded – had to sign that he rejected the Aryan paragraph.^[58]

In 1934 the Covenant counted 7,036 members, after 1935 the number sank to 4,952, among them 374 retired pastors, 529 auxiliary preachers and 116 candidates. First the pastors of Berlin, affiliated with the Covenant, met biweekly in Gerhard Jacobi's private apartment. From 1935 on they convened in the premises of the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA, German: Christlicher Verein Junger Männer) in Wilhelmstraße No. 24 in Berlin-Kreuzberg, opposite to the headquarters of Heinrich Himmler's Sicherheitsdienst (in 1939 integrated into the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, RSHA) in Wilhelmstraße # 102. In 1941 the Gestapo closed the YMCA house.^[67]

Zdroj:https://en.wikipedia.org?pojem=Evangelical_Church_of_Prussia's_older_Provinces
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