Evangelical Church in Germany - History

History

Since the Peace of Augsburg 1555 until the end of World War I and the collapse of the German Empire, some Protestant churches were state churches. Each Landeskirche (regional church) was the official church of one of the states of Germany while the respective ruler was the church's formal head (e.g. the King of Prussia headed the Evangelical Church of Prussia's older Provinces as supreme governor), similar to the British monarch's role in the Church of England.

This changed somewhat with growing religious freedom in the 19th century, especially in the three republican states of Bremen, Lübeck and Hamburg. The greatest change came after the German Revolution with the formation of the Weimar Republic and the abdication of the princes of the German states. The system of state churches disappeared with the monarchies, and there was a desire for the Protestant churches to merge. In fact, a merger was permanently under discussion but never materialized due to strong regional self-confidence and traditions as well as the denominational fragmentation into Lutheran, Reformed and United churches. During the revolution when the old church governments lost power, the People's Church Union (Volkskirchenbund) was formed advocating unification without respect to theological tradition and increasing input from laymen. However, the People's Church Union quickly split along territorial lines after the churches' relationship with the government improved.

It was realized that one mainstream Protestant church for all of Germany was impossible and that any union would need a federal model. The churches met in Dresden in 1919 and created a plan for federation, and this plan was adopted in 1921 at Stuttgart. Then in 1922 the 28 territorially defined Protestant churches founded the German Evangelical Church Confederation (Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchenbund, DEK). At the time, the federation was the largest Protestant church union in Europe with around 40 million members. Because it was a union of independent bodies, the Church Union's work was limited to foreign missions and relations with Protestant churches outside Germany, especially German Protestants in other countries.

In July 1933, the German Evangelical Church (Deutsche Evangelische Kirche, DEK) was formed under the influence of the German Christians. The National Socialists had much influence over the decisions of the first National Synod, via their unambiguous partisanship in successfully backing Ludwig Müller for the office of Reich bishop. He did not manage, however, to prevail over the Landeskirchen in the long term, and after the installation of Hanns Kerrl as minister for church matters in a Führer-directive of 16 July 1935 and the foundation of the Protestant Reich Church, the DEK played more or less no further role.

In 1948, freed from the German Christians' influence, the Lutheran, Reformed and United churches came together as the Evangelical Church in Germany at the Conference of Eisenach. In 1969, the churches in East Germany broke away from the EKD and formed the League of Evangelical Churches in the German Democratic Republic (German: Bund der Evangelischen Kirchen in der DDR, BEK). In June 1991, following German reunification, the BEK merged with the EKD.

While the members are no longer established churches, they are still called Landeskirchen, and some have this term in their official names. A modern English translation, however, would be regional church. Apart from some minor changes, the territories of the member churches today reflect Germany's political organisation in the year 1848, with state churches for states or provinces that no longer exist. For example between 1945 and 1948, the remaining six ecclesiastical provinces (Kirchenprovinzen), each territorially comprising one of the Old Prussia provinces, within the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union assumed independence as a consequence of the estrangement among them during the Nazi struggle of the churches. This turned the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union into a mere umbrella, being itself a member of EKD but covering some regional church bodies, which were again themselves members of EKD. Ordination of women is practised in all 20 member churches with many women having been ordained in recent years. There are also several female bishops. Margot Käßmann, former Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover and Chairperson of the Council of the EKD from 2009 until February 2010, was the first woman to head the EKD. Blessing of same-sex unions is practised in 11 member churches.