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.
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).
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.
The following independent regional Protestant church bodies were members in the German Evangelical Church Confederation:
The Evangelical Church in Germany, also known as the Protestant Church in Germany, is a federation of twenty Lutheran, Reformed, and United Protestant regional Churches in Germany, collectively encompassing the vast majority of the country's Protestants. In 2022, the EKD had a membership of 19,153,000 members, or 22.7% of the German population. It constitutes one of the largest Protestant bodies in the world. Church offices managing the federation are located in Herrenhausen, Hanover, Lower Saxony. Many of its members consider themselves Lutherans.
The North Elbian Evangelical Lutheran Church was a Lutheran regional church in Northern Germany which emerged from a merger of four churches in 1977 and merged with two more churches in 2012. The NEK largely covered the area of the states of Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg where it was the most important Christian denomination. It had 2.1 million members in 595 parishes, constituting 46% of the population in its ambit.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Thuringia was a Lutheran member church of the umbrella Protestant Church in Germany. The seat of the church was in Eisenach. The church covered those parts of the state of Thuringia that were not part of the former Province of Saxony. It was the largest Protestant denomination in this area.
The Pomeranian Evangelical Church was a Protestant regional church in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, serving the citizens living in Hither Pomerania. The Pomeranian Evangelical Church was based on the teachings brought forward by Martin Luther and other Reformators during the Reformation. It combined Lutheran and Reformed traditions. The seat of the church was Greifswald, the bishop's preaching venue was the former Collegiate Church of St. Nicholas in Greifswald.
The Independent Evangelical-Lutheran Church is a confessional Lutheran church body of Germany. It is a member of the European Lutheran Conference and of the International Lutheran Council (ILC). The SELK has about 33,000 members in 174 congregations. The seat of SELK is in Hanover.
The Prussian Union of Churches 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.
The Reformed branch of Protestantism in Switzerland was started in Zürich by Huldrych Zwingli and spread within a few years to Basel, Bern, St. Gallen,(Joachim Vadian), to cities in southern Germany and via Alsace to France.
The Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Hanover is a Lutheran church body (Landeskirche) in the northern German state of Lower Saxony and the city of Bremerhaven covering the territory of the former Kingdom of Hanover.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Oldenburg is a Lutheran church in the German state of Lower Saxony.
The Evangelical Church Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia is a United Protestant church body in the German states of Brandenburg, Berlin and a part of Saxony.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Brunswick is a Lutheran church in the German states of Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt.
Evangelical Church of the Palatinate is a United Protestant church in parts of the German states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland, endorsing both Lutheran and Calvinist orientations.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria is a Lutheran member church of the Protestant Church in Germany in the German state of Bavaria.
Lutheran viewpoints concerning homosexuality are diverse because there is no one worldwide body which represents all Lutherans. The Lutheran World Federation, a worldwide 'communion of churches' and the largest global body of Lutherans, contains member churches on both sides of the issue. However, other Lutherans, including the Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Conference and International Lutheran Council, completely reject homosexuality.
In Germany and Switzerland, a Landeskirche is the church of a region. The term usually refers to Protestant churches, but—in case of Switzerland—also Roman Catholic dioceses. They originated as the national churches of the independent states, States of Germany (Länder) or Cantons of Switzerland , that later unified to form modern Germany or modern Switzerland, respectively.
Buß- und Bettag was a public holiday in Germany, and is still a public holiday in Saxony. In Germany, Protestant church bodies of Lutheran, Reformed (Calvinist) and United denominations celebrate a day of repentance and prayer. It is now celebrated on the penultimate Wednesday before the beginning of the Protestant liturgical year on the first Sunday of Advent; in other words, it is the Wednesday that falls between 16 and 22 November. However, it is not a statutory non-working holiday any more, except in the Free State of Saxony. In the Free State of Bavaria, it is a school holiday only.
The Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Saxony is one of 20 member Churches of the Protestant Church in Germany (EKD), covering most of the state of Saxony. Its headquarters are in Dresden, and the seat of the bishop is at Meissen Cathedral. Prior to the propagation of state atheism in the German Democratic Republic, it was the largest Evangelical Lutheran church in Germany.
The Protestant Church of Anhalt is a United Protestant member church of the Protestant Church in Germany. Its seat is in Dessau-Roßlau in Saxony-Anhalt, in the former duchy of Anhalt. This church is the smallest regional church in Germany in terms of membership.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Schaumburg-Lippe is a Lutheran member church (Landeskirche) of the Protestant Church in Germany. It covers the former principality of Schaumburg-Lippe and seated in Bückeburg.
The Protestant Church in Baden is a United Protestant member church of the Protestant Church in Germany (EKD), and member of the Conference of Churches on the Rhine, which now functions as a regional group of the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe (CPCE). The Evangelical Church in Baden is a united Protestant church. Its headquarter, the Evangelical Superior Church Council is located in Karlsruhe.