Protestant Reich Church - Background

Background

In the reorganization of the German states during German mediatisation, in many of the new states, churches came under the jurisdiction and control of the state. State governments sought to reorganize—modernize—the cumbersome system of congregational fragmentation into a streamlined, economical ecclesiastical structure. In the 19th century, states such as the Grand Duchy of Baden, and the kingdoms of Prussia, Württemberg, and Saxony sought to reduce religious conflict among their subjects by legitimising a range of religious practices that required individual communities to accept individuals of many creeds. In Prussia, for example, Frederick William III established this with Prussian Union, or sometimes, simply, the Union. In the Grand Duchy of Baden, and in Württemberg, the unified churches were established via organization edicts issued following mediatisation. For example, the formerly Catholic imperial cities of Überlingen and Ravensburg had to accept Protestant citizens, and provide a place for Protestant worship; similarly, formerly Protestant cities as Schwäbisch Hall had to offer Catholics a place of religious worship. The practice was not universally accepted; dissenting groups frequently sought permission to migrate to Australia, the United States, Canada and Brazil so that they could practice their own particular "brand" of Lutheran or Evangelical worship. In particular, the Old Lutheran communities in Missouri, South Australia, and Ontario, Canada came from this movement. These communities maintained strong ties to the homeland, continued to speak German over generations, and developed extensive education and mission programs such as that offered at the seminary in Neuendettelsau, in Franconia.

In the state reorganization after 1871, a consequence of unification, new tensions of what it meant to be a German merged with notions of religious differences, creating a so-called Kulturkampf, or War of Culture in the 1870s. To prevent criticism of state policies, whether national or regional, an 1871 Pulpit Law prohibited pastors and priests from discussing state policy in their homilies. In particular, this law targeted a nascent German Catholic Church movement, one free of ultra-montanism, or control by the Vatican. A widely spread belief in a Jesuit conspiracy to taint the new "Germany" gathered momentum, particularly focused against the regions in which Catholicism had a long-standing foothold, such as Bavaria, the Duchy of Baden, and the upper Rhineland, in the vicinity of the old Electorate of Cologne. The movement further targeted Jews, (especially those newly-arriving from Russian Poland), Mormons, and Jehovah's Witnesses as suspect. At the same time, political organizations, such as the Catholic Centre Party, acquired political clout by supporting religious liberty, defending access of Catholics and other groups to primary, secondary and university education, employment, and professions, promoting the idea that justice was the basis of government.